


Dixie Whistle

by chennieforyourthoughts



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alien Abduction, Alien Character(s), Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Demon Summoning, Demons, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Minor Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung, Minor Kwon Soonyoung | Hoshi/Lee Jihoon | Woozi, Obligatory country songs paired with Southern lingo, non-graphic injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:55:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 45,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21539365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chennieforyourthoughts/pseuds/chennieforyourthoughts
Summary: Jeno was pretty sure that as far as demon summonings went, his was a complete failure. His first clue was that he was abducted by an alien rather than awestruck by a demon.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Lee Jeno
Comments: 14
Kudos: 64
Collections: ’00 FIC FEST: ROUND ONE





	Dixie Whistle

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt #00201  
> Thank you for such a lovely prompt, and I hope you enjoy my silly little space western.  
> 
> 
>   
> _Saved by the sound of the bein' found,_  
>  _Dixie whistle in the wind, that'll get you Heaven bound_  
>  _The devil went down to Georgia but he didn't stick around..._  
> 
> 
> — “God’s Country,” Blake Shelton

##  _The Sound of the Bein’ Found_

  
  


There was not much in that dusty old town of Jeno's, besides, well, more dust. He had grown used to it by now, and was relatively sure that his truck had not been its original shade of blue for several years. It was a dull blue now, somewhat sun-bleached, but mostly dust-covered. On this particular afternoon, Jeno was pulling it up to the town market in search of some groceries.

Yes, Jeno was a farmer, but he was not a _heathen._ Sometimes he wanted his instant ramen.

He needed to pick up some carrots for his ranch horses as well. Preferably a big bag, twenty pounds of nice orange carrots for the creatures who served him so well. Jeno liked his horses, liked how dependable they were for members of the equine species, and reminded himself to clean his boots soon to show his horses the proper amount of respect.

The truck door slammed shut with little coaxing—it was fond of slamming, that one—and Jeno grinned as he stepped through the door into the town market. Mark waved at him from behind the counter, and Jeno couldn't help his little spike of amusement. _At least he could cook, and he wasn't even the one working at the market!_

Jeno worked down his list and whistled a quiet tune as he stepped up to pay for it, and Mark picked it up. "It's strange," the cashier commented, and Jeno nodded. "We're _on_ the old town road, yet even everyone here is obsessed with that song."

"Some things can't be explained by science," Jeno shrugged, and Mark laughed.

"You're right with that. Any luck with your demon?"

It was a dusty old town and so terribly boring. Jeno was there because he didn't know where else to go, but Mark was certain he stayed for the purpose of summoning a demon. Less chance of collateral damage, you know?

"Haven't tried yet," Jeno said, and Mark gave him a wink. Change rattled down into a half-broken cup.  
  
  


"Maybe you'll get a succubus."

"Who knows." Jeno put his bag over one shoulder and the twenty pound bag of carrots over the other, and decided to leave before Mark said anything more. "I'll keep you posted."

With the carrots tossed into the back and the other groceries up in the front next to him, Jeno started his truck and listened to it rumble to life. In a town like the one he lived in, it was possible it'd be a struggling rumble, with a few chokes on its drink as it struggled to get words out, but Jeno's truck ran smooth. It was a pride of his, that dull blue truck, and he treated it just as well as he treated the other creatures who worked for him: his horses, his cattle, and his herding dogs.

It was a lonely life, Jeno assumed, although it didn't really _feel_ lonely to him because it'd been the only one he'd known for most of his life. He hadn't had any siblings, which was rare in the town, and although his parents had moved out and retired in Florida, Jeno had stayed behind. He'd grown up on a farm, and he'd stay on a farm and continue the legacy. For years his family had focused on cattle, but recently Jeno had found himself growing bored.

He might not have been lonely, but he had become bored. Very, _very_ bored. An ex-church boy summoning a demon bored.

Speaking of demon summoning, his grocery bag had some important items for that, namely salt and a few packs of mint gum in case his breath got too gnarly. Tonight was the night—Jeno had planned it out, and he was going to be prepared. If there was something being a farmer had taught him which might help with demon summoning, it was that planning and patience were key. This wasn't something he was going to rush, just as he wouldn't rush training one of his horses or a calving. It was partly because planning and patience were his practice, and partly because although he was bored, he wanted to stay safe.

Lee Jeno did not want to summon a demon. Lee Jeno wanted to summon a _big_ demon, and therefore he assumed that a big demon would require a more specialized approach. Jeno had readied his tractor that morning, checking it down to the nuts and bolts, and had gone to look at the crop field he was planning to use to see if it was alright. It was, and now Jeno had acquired his final supplies for his plan.

He was not going to draw a pentagram on his living room floor. He was going to take his tractor out into his field and he was going to crush a pentagram into the off-season field.

In truth, he'd had this plan for many years, but he had never been able to execute it before because he had never had the spare income. But his parents had sent him some money (without an explanation, and since they were retired Jeno was not about to ask for one), and he had had a good harvest the year before, and was able to temporarily sacrifice one of his fields on a whim.

Was it a crazy idea? Yes, and Jeno knew it. But it was _his_ crazy idea, and he was going to do it while he had the chance. _Too bad Johnny was back in Chicago visiting friends, he had always wanted to join in._ Today—well, very early tomorrow, technically—was Jeno's chance, and he knew this because he'd been doing research on Google and found some websites all agreeing that tomorrow would be a particularly "occult" early morning.

Dinner that night was a quiet affair, Jeno giving occasional pieces of his chicken dish to his shepherd dog. She was Jeno's favorite, and he had had many dogs over the years, but there was something special about her. She'd been there for him through some hard times, and tonight she would be there for him again. After Jeno put his plate in the sink, he sank down onto the ground beside Stella and wrapped his arms around her neck. She huffed in happy dog language, and her tail beat against the floor. He hadn't had her tail cut, but it hadn't seemed to have hindered her in doing her job. Sometimes she'd hop up onto a horse with Jeno and ride along for a while, before jumping down and trotting alongside.

"You can't come out with me tonight," Jeno said, gentle but firm, yet his companion did not seem to mind. He would have sworn that she knew English beyond what most dogs knew, because sometimes he'd say things about "making coffee" and she would pop up, seemingly knowing that that meant he was ready to start his day. "We might have a visitor, and I don't want you getting hurt."

Jeno washed his dishes, took a shower, and set his alarm for two in the morning. He slept early, not knowing how long it would take him to carve the pentagram into his corn but wanting to have a big demon secured before sunup. The pillow seemed to call to him like a siren, and he barely remembered to double check his alarm before letting himself slip away.

At the first shrill chime, Jeno was sitting up and ready to sin. He shrugged on the clothes he had set out, put on his work boots, and headed out to the tractor barn to get the engine running.

Farms are eerie at night, and that early hour was no exception. Jeno could see the shapes of his cattle standing in their pasture behind the buildings of the various barns, dark against the light coming from the machinery barn. Given the angle, it almost looked like they were ready to be taken away by a flying saucer, and Jeno snorted at the thought. Maybe he didn't even need Johnny there to have a fun time summoning a demon, after all.

The barn was silent when Jeno first entered. He could see some of his barn cats on the prowl, but their steps were quiet enough that he could not hear them walk. It was an orange tabby and a grey and white that night, and he smiled at their friendship as he settled into the seat of his chosen tractor and started the engine.

The tractor's light came on like the beam of a lighthouse's lantern, breaking through the darkness lingering outside the lit warehouse in a skinny line. Jeno was used to working at night, but he didn't enjoy it. The night was windless and clear, only the faintest cirrus clouds visible over the far mountains behind the open barn door.

As he guided the tractor to the sacrificial field, Jeno couldn't help but wonder what he would do with the demon. He knew what he would ask for—a companion to make life in his dusty old town a touch (and hopefully a bit more than a touch) more interesting—but not what he would _do_ once he had his companion.

Truth be told, as long as it was a big demon, he wasn't particularly picky as to what kind of demon it was. Despite Mark's joking, he wouldn't mind if it wasn't a succubus, or an incubus, or even a particularly evil demon. Not that he'd had much experience learning about demons outside of his Google and library research; his family had not been occultists or Satanists, and nobody he knew was, either. He didn't even know any pagans, which.... didn't actually surprise Jeno very much, considering that he was from a small town and had only left the surrounding fifty miles a handful of times.

Part of Jeno wondered if perhaps he should ask the demon for a vacation. They could go off somewhere, just the two of them, somewhere tropical and far away. The Maldives, maybe. Listen to cute summer pop and sip martinis on the beach.... oh, wait, Jeno knew that song. He rolled his eyes at himself as he jumped down from the tractor to open the gate to the field. The metal was cold under his fingertips, cold like the glint of stars above him. Jeno turned to face his tractor again and squinted against the headlight, overwhelming against the blackness of night in the country.

The time had come, and Jeno was ready.

He started with the lines of the star. Even his good driving would not yield corners sharp enough to be a pentagram if he tried to turn them, so he drove straight lines and connected them with the circle. And when he was done, he pulled the tractor back out and surveyed his work from the side through the glow of the headlight. He couldn't do anything but hope now, and so he found himself wishing upon a star. It was his favorite star, that one which appeared right over the mountain he and his childhood friends had named Arrow. To this day, Jeno wasn't entirely sure what the mountain's true name was, but the technicalities didn't mean that much to him.

In the cold night air, Jeno wished upon his star. It might have been a part of a constellation, or it might not have been, but whatever it was, it was quickly removed from Jeno's field of vision. Or, rather, Jeno was quickly removed from its field of vision.

Jeno did not see white. Jeno did not see black. Jeno did not see the secrets of the universe suddenly revealed to him. In fact, Jeno saw absolutely nothing. Not nothing out of the ordinary— _nothing._

But someone saw everything. There were more sentient creatures out there on the farm that night than just humans: take the cows, for instance, or Stella, or the horses who were dozing in their nice warm stalls. The one who saw everything was none of the above.

He happened to use a name that, when Romanized, sounded more or less like Renjun, and this Renjun had been having a very poor day. He had been assigned to land at Target 04232000 that night, a new local crop circle, but its maker had still been there when he had arrived, and did not seem to want to talk, so Renjun had to Take Him In. This was a rare occurrence for Scouts, so Renjun had gotten rather unlucky that night.

Renjun looked at the maker and raised his shoulders. It was not a bad looking maker, he guessed, and human, so at least they'd be able to talk. But Renjun was not pleased, and he was not in a particularly friendly or patient mood, and Renjun was not certain that he would not pop the human as soon as he found out where the stock was.

Stock. Renjun really needed to restock, he was running low on energy and wouldn't be given any more until he returned with more fuel for the fleet. He was bleeding energy every minute, every second really, in useless radiation which traveled away from him. He was beautiful, but he had never been so low in his life, and was debating whether to shock the human awake when it rolled over and opened its eyes and stared at him.

"Uh," said Jeno. He could not tell what he was looking at, whether it was the bright light of the sun and there was someone leaning over him, or whether he was in the hospital and that was a doctor, or whether he was dead and that was an angel and—he wasn't dead, was he?

Person-shape leaned closer to him. "Do you have the stock?"

Jeno squeaked. It was not a loud voice, but it said a lot in what it didn't say, and honestly under different circumstances he might have called it attractive. Now, however, it was only intimidating, and Jeno was becoming increasingly suspicious that he was either dead or about to have his soul separated from his body. "Stock? I don't have any stock.... unless you mean stock horses?"

The shape leaned back, and Jeno wondered what it was thinking. _It? He? Was it a person? Was it something else?_ "The stock. For the fleet." Jeno's eyes widened. He was now wondering if perhaps he had fallen asleep behind the wheel of his tractor, and rejoiced at the thought that he might wake up from the cold soon. But whoever was standing near him seemed deadly serious, even though Jeno couldn't see any expression on its face, only a black blankness, surrounded by a spectrum of some sort. It was every color and no colors at once, and the strangeness made Jeno shiver.

It was time for some pleading, wasn't it? Jeno wanted to go home, would never be so happy to see Stella again in his life. "I've never heard of a stock, or a fleet. Please let me go, you must have the wrong person."

Renjun growled, and Jeno stiffened on the table. It was a table, he could tell…. or maybe more of a slab of material. "Tell me you made the crop circle."

"Crop circle? That's a pentagram!"

The words hung in the air, and Jeno could not see any eyes in the stranger's face, or what would have been a face, but he knew that they were watching each other. "A pentagram?"

"A pentagram. I was trying to summon a demon this morning. I don't know anything about a crop circle, I swear on it." Not like Jeno had much to swear upon at this point, considering that he had no idea where he was or why he was lying on a slab or why the shape looked both like a person and not like a person at the same time.

Up until now, Scout Renjun had been having a very poor day. Now, Renjun was having the worst day in his living memory, which was truly saying something. "Either you help me find the crop circle I'm looking for, then," he said, "or I kill you."

Truthfully, Jeno was not too surprised to hear this. He had already been suspecting he would be killed, but hearing the words still shot adrenaline into his veins. His vision cleared and his senses sharpened, but he still could not see any distinguishing features of his abductor. "I will help you find the crop circle."

"Good," said Renjun. "Now we get to work."

❂ ❂ ❂

There were a few things which took time for Jeno to come to terms with: he was abducted by an alien, if the alien could not find Target 04232000 aka the crop circle near Jeno's dusty old town then the alien would kill him, and he was farther away from home than he had ever been before. He knew even without asking that they were more than fifty miles out, because even though they were in a rural area, crop circles like the ones the alien was looking for were apparently rather rare. They weren't pure crop circles, since they usually had some sort of geometric design inside them to aid with identification. Jeno found that fact easier to process than the first three, and hearing the shadow shape discuss the technicalities of crop circles was rather grounding.

Unless, of course, the shadow shape currently ranting about how Jeno's star had looked like a series of triangles decided it wanted him dead. Even though Jeno had been rather bored with his life, he had certainly enjoyed being alive, and he was not planning on losing his life any time soon if he had any say in it.

_But hey,_ Jeno's mind whispered, _you've been abducted, but at least you're not bored right now, and that's a change from the past few years._

It was time for him to be a touch brave, Jeno decided. "May I ask a question?" The shape did not turn its head to look at him, so he wondered whether it observed from every angle. That was a thought that made him shiver, and not in a good way.

"Yes," said Renjun. In all honesty, Renjun was rather out of things to do as his ship steered towards a crop circle which had come up on the scanner.

"Are you an alien?"

Silence, for a time. It did not feel particularly ominous, however, and Jeno did not fidget as he waited for a response.

"Yes," said Renjun again, "although I suspect that _I_ would call you the alien."

Jeno blinked in surprise. "Huh." It wasn't a crazy idea, just one he hadn't thought of before. Who was the alien amongst the two of them? Were neither of them aliens, or were both of them aliens? The other would be an alien, but to each other they were both the other, and Jeno was somewhat worried that his brain was about to start bleeding.

"We're both aliens then," he decided, with a thoughtful nod. Renjun stared at Jeno, despite his lack of visible eyes, and he snorted in amusement.

"I guess that solves it." Renjun hesitated to agree, but thankfully for him, he was saved by his ship's computer chiming. It was the scanner, and it said that they were rapidly approaching the intended crop circle. "We're almost there."

Renjun was finally about to get to the fuel he needed and therefore the energy he needed, and Jeno would no longer be useful to him. That meant that he would have to figure out what to do with the human, who was _not_ the maker he had been looking for, and Renjun knew that there were steep penalties for abducting non-maker humans. He had been saving up for a place planetside, too, and every minute the human spent on his ship was more he would be fined—if it was just a fine. Renjun would happily take a fine over a beheading.

_Wouldn't it be easier to dispose of the human after getting the fuel?_ Nobody would ever need to know, and he could carry on his work. But a nagging doubt lingered in his mind—Renjun could not know if his work would be identified, whether by a curious human or an extraterrestrial. The Celestials had been getting rather rowdy recently, at least in Renjun's opinion, and the thought made him frown. They'd happily turn him in, and if he was caught killing a human, he would either be sent to hard labor and never see the stars again or be rapidly disposed of.

Perhaps he could abandon the human somewhere hostile. _A desert, perhaps? Or the top of a tall peak?_ Renjun looked over at where the human was standing. (Jeno had been wrong in guessing that the alien could see from every angle. Renjun did in fact have eyes, but not enough energy at the moment to manifest them. His vision was rather blurry, and it was another irritating thing.) Jeno's wrists and elbows were bound together to avoid him messing with Renjun's ship, but his ankles and knees were left free so he could walk. All in all, it was not a _bad_ human, Renjun guessed. Just a farmer who had been at the wrong place at the wrong time, making a pentagram at two in the morning.

  
  


If Jeno knew what thoughts were going through Renjun's mind at that moment, his face did not show it. Perhaps there _might_ be a few perks to keeping the human around, Renjun grudgingly admitted to himself. For a start, although Jeno did not seem to be talking much (was that because he had been abducted from his farm in the middle of the night? Probably.), his quiet presence was much more than the empty space Renjun had been in for he couldn't even remember how long.

Renjun was scared to admit that—how bored he had been, how terribly lonely. The Radem were supposed to be used to long journeys to gather resources for their fleet, and their Scouts in particular had to be ready to be away from other Radem for many trips at a time. Renjun would never speak a word about it himself; he might have been bored and lonely, but he did not have a death wish, which brought him back to the problem currently standing a few feet away.

"You will gather the fuel with me." Renjun's voice surprised even himself, and Jeno seemed to startle at the tone. It was a statement, but it did not carry overtones of menace, and Renjun found himself wondering where the Scout in him had gone. "Part of my duty is to acquire the fuel as efficiently as possible, and you can help carry some of the load."

Jeno did not look as excited as Renjun had expected him to. "You're sending me to hard labor?"

There was no word other than "horror" to describe what settled upon Renjun in that moment. "No," he said. "Not that. I could not ask that of you." Even when Renjun turned his focus to making his ship hover over the crop circle, he could not help the vibrations that were rattling him. Vibrations? Renjun did not remember feeling those before, and it took him an unsettling amount of time to realize what they were.

Renjun, Radem Scout, was shaking.

He'd heard of shaking before, of course. It was the kind of thing that would get you expelled from the fleet, an outcast—no, worse than that. It was the kind of thing that would destine you to life outside the fleet, forever and terribly alone, but the kind of alone where one is surrounded by countless others, and each are equally lonely. Only those relegated to hard labor shook, and then they faced the whip.

Renjun took a deep breath and considered his decision made for him. "We're here," he told Jeno. He reached out slowly, carefully, and let the void of his hand unlock the binds on the human's wrists and arms. "Follow me on down."

At the press of a certain series of buttons, a segment of the bottom of Renjun's ship slid open and a ladder descended. The ladder's sensors told it where to stop extending, and Renjun followed its progress on down. Jeno followed him, face carefully guarded.

Now, Jeno too was wondering what he should do, but the decision did not seem set to him. Then, as Renjun hit the soil of the crop field, he turned to look at Jeno where he was coming down the ladder. "If I could return you to your farm, I would."

_Was that regret in the alien's voice that he was hearing?_ "Why can't you?" Jeno fought to keep his spirit down and not get carried away in false hopes.

"According to Scout code, makers are the only ones who are allowed to retain their human status while working with us. But if I kill you, I will be either beheaded or sentenced to hard labor because Scouts are not allowed to kill any native lifeforms."

It was still dark outside, and Jeno realized he did not know how much time had passed that he did not remember. _Had it been a few minutes, maybe a couple of hours, or had the day come and gone?_ It was a strange thought that came into his head following Renjun's admission, and Jeno was not sure what to make of it or why it had come to him then. "Well then, we're screwed," Jeno said, and frowned almost as quickly as it came out. He hadn't exactly thought that through but.... well, he was exactly right, if somewhat blunt.

Only the outline of Renjun was really visible in the darkness, and it started at violet and faded to red. Jeno wondered why he looked like a rainbow around the outsides, when the inside of him—where his body should have been—appeared blank. "Not necessarily." Renjun was careful when he said it, the words hitting him hard.

He didn't need his eyes to see that they hit Jeno harder. "And what does that mean?"

"It means that you could come with me. As an equal. I avoid being decapitated, and you avoid being brainwashed or quietly shipped away. I say that you're helpful for locating crop circles and transporting the fuel, and we work faster together. The Masters let you stay, and we work together."

Jeno stared at him in silence. He was backlit by the light spilling from the interior of Renjun's ship, and Renjun could not see his expression. It was something he was unused to—not being able to easily read how someone was feeling from their face. In all truth, this was because Renjun had not been around others besides the Masters for far too long, but that thought did not occur to him where he stood amongst the whispering cornstalks.

"If I can get someone to look after my farm, then yes."

Renjun wished he had enough energy to project a face like the ones Jeno expected to see from his fellow humans, to add a sense of trustworthiness to his promise. As it was, Renjun knew that all Jeno had to rely on was his word, and words could be twisted. Renjun knew that he should have read his contract more carefully, but it was too late to change that now.

"You can choose who it is. We'll go see them right after we gather this fuel." Speaking of, Renjun began walking through a path in the cornfield, and Jeno was quick to follow him.

"Alright, you have a deal."

There was something different about the field that night compared to the field Jeno had started out in. The sacrificial field had been one he knew, had grown his corn on two years ago, and standing in that field felt like being home just as much as standing in his cozy living room felt like being home. This field felt like being somewhere he should not have been at a time he should not have been conscious.

Or maybe that was just because they were trespassing.

It had been years since the last time Jeno trespassed, but he remembered it clearly. It was with Jaemin and Jisung and Chenle in tow, and they were going to watch the new barrel horses down the street. It was a private facility, closed to both the public and peeking teenagers like the four of them, but if there was one thing that would have made a place worthwhile to sneak into, it was _horses._

Jeno shook his head at the memory, but a grin crept onto his face and his spirits rose away into the quiet emptiness of the night. "Whose land is this?" he asked, and Renjun seemed to turn back to look at him.

"I've never met its maker," he replied. "This is my first time at this particular Target, so I cannot really speculate."

Silence settled again. Jeno could hear himself breathing, but he couldn't seem to hear Renjun breathing. He could hear footsteps from both of them, though, so Renjun clearly had _some_ sort of mass, and that came as an odd relief to Jeno. He guessed it was relieving because that meant that Renjun had a body, even if he could only see the shape of it. It was a beautiful shape, and especially so at night—the blankness of Renjun blended in with the blankness of the night landscape, and the rainbow flowed out from him like an aura, or perhaps like an aurora. Jeno wondered what created the rainbow, and what it meant for Renjun.

It was radiation, of course, but of a particularly friendly energy level. Within the visible spectrum, in fact, which was why Jeno was able to see it. There was much more radiation bleeding out from Renjun's body that Jeno was unable to see, and it was probably better that way.

Even as Jeno was following the alien who had abducted him and taken him to seemingly abandoned corn field in the dead of night, he couldn't help but look up at the stars and wonder how many others like him were waiting to meet an alien, or were currently with an alien, or had met an alien, or had seen an alien's spacecraft.

It was then that Jeno realized he didn't know his alien's name.

A clearing opened up before them, and Jeno guessed that they had reached the center of the crop circle. Something there looked odd—something was _glowing,_ Jeno realized, an added unnatural blue haloing the alien besides the rainbow. "I... I don't know your name," he murmured, and the familiar shape definitely turned towards him that time.

"You may call me Renjun," Renjun said, and there was something resembling a touch of mirth in his voice. "That's what the makers call me when we have dealings."

"Dealings, huh?" Jeno stopped beside the extraterrestrial and saw what appeared to be a pile of boxes, all glowing that odd shade of blue. "I'm Lee Jeno."

Together they stared at the boxes, and around them the night ticked by. There was little going on that night, for it was outside of a different dusty old town, so the night turned its focus towards them and watched and listened but did not intrude.

If Renjun had had enough energy to show a face at that moment, he would have been smiling. Not a joyous one, not a sarcastic one, but a bit of a smirk. A quirk of one lip, probably, like how things were beginning to go sideways from how they usually went. "Renjun and Jeno," he said, and listened to it fade away into the distance, riding off on quiet hooves. "It's got a ring to it, I guess?"

Jeno's brow furrowed. "I guess it does," he said, although he wasn't really feeling it yet. It seemed to be missing something to him, but he was not about to contradict Renjun at that time.

"Not that we're friends. We're just here so that we aren't given fates worse than death."

Well, there went Jeno's hope. "No fates worse than death for us, then," he said, and looked up at the sky and the stars and wished that he could stick by Renjun's words. _Not friends, partners. Not friends, partners. Not friends, partners._

Renjun's glow seemed a bit fainter to Jeno when he looked back at him, but it was just his eyes playing tricks on him. "Let's get these boxes into the ship," Renjun said, so that was what they did, and the light pouring from the ship's interior quickly became the only light for miles.

❂ ❂ ❂

_That same night, something was rising in the darkness. It was tired, really, and it was running late for an important discussion about quarterly profits, and it could not afford to be waylaid._

_Yet it was waylaid, and it found itself blinking its eyes open at black. And black. And more black. But then there was a light, and there in the distance, far beyond the light, were the shapes of sleeping cattle._

_Sleeping cattle, it thought. Sleeping calves._

_And the thing awoke, and the thing arose._

❂ ❂ ❂

"Where are we headed now?" All in all, Renjun and Jeno were looking relatively good at the moment, with a ship full of fuel and heads which might be spared a few extra days. Years, hopefully, although neither of them were thinking far enough ahead to hope yet. The hope would come later, although they didn't know it yet; it was currently a growing thing. And growing things need sleep and time to grow, so it stayed curled up and waited for its time to come.

Renjun did not turn away from the ship's main display. "I must take my load to the Masters," he said. "They make decisions for our community, and every time a Scout gathers fuel, it is taken to them to be distributed."

Jeno hummed. He'd pulled up a chair (although it didn't look much like a normal human chair, it was rather egg-shaped in form) and settled into it to watch out the front viewscreen. They were in space, he knew, and Jeno wondered if this would qualify him for astronaut's wings. _If anyone would believe his story, that is._ "That's a different system than the U.S.," he noted. "Does it work well?"

There was not even a crackle in the entire ship; there was nothing but them gliding through the Void, side by side. "It is our system," Renjun replied, "it works well." Renjun's meaning was clear from his tone, so Jeno decided to steer clear of any more prying political questions.

"Will I be able to leave the ship there?" Jeno asked. It wasn't something he'd considered during all the initial chaos—the possibility of an atmosphere being toxic to him, or a pathogen that he had no way to handle, or any of the other countless ways he could die. _Maybe he should have considered this all a bit more.... not that he'd had much of a choice when Renjun had abducted him from the seat of his tractor after he'd been carving a pentagram for the last two hours._

Renjun cocked his head—Jeno could tell based on the way the shadow of him tilted. "I believe so. I will ask the Masters for certain, and will work to get a vaccine for you."

_That was good,_ Jeno thought. He had seen _War of Worlds,_ after all, and would be lying if he said it hadn't made a mark on him. He'd never thought that he'd end up being forced to work alongside an alien, though. _If only Johnny could see him now._

_If only Johnny could—Johnny._

Jeno slapped his palms against his thighs. Renjun did not jump, but he did startle. He wasn't used to noise, after all, having been on his own for so long. "I know who I want to look after my farm," Jeno said.

"Then we'll go talk to him after I report to the Masters." Renjun was an alien of his word, and would be damned if he broke it. He could already feel the usual creep of dread which accompanied reporting in, and for a brief moment wondered if he would be able to avoid it. Not report in at all. Run, run away until he was far from anything he had ever known as a Radem and a Scout.

But that would make Renjun an outcast, and it was said that that life was worse, even more so than hard labor. Renjun could not comprehend such a thing, given what hard labor was for his kind, so he was quiet.

❂ ❂ ❂

The Masters were centrally located in the fleet. Jeno had never thought that he would see a fleet of spaceships in his life, but there they were, shining grey in the blackness of the void. Jeno had never thought he'd be in space in his life, either, or even see an alien, so his life was definitely _not_ going as he had expected.

"There's Command," Renjun said, and he raised one shadow of an arm to point at one of the glimmers. "The ships are spaced out across the galaxy, so we can only see the closest ones from here."

Jeno hummed. It felt oddly familiar, this scene, although his life did not feel familiar anymore. He wracked his brain to figure out what bit of popular media it reminded him of, but came up blank. _Too bad,_ he thought. _Maybe he should write a book when he went back to Earth._ Or, rather, if he _ever_ went back to Earth.

He felt his eyes slipping closed. He hadn't gotten any sleep since he had first woken on Renjun's ship, and he had no way of telling how much time had passed while they were in space, only that it had been night when they had left the crop circle that had been confused with the pentagram.

Before Jeno knew it, he had drifted off to sleep. They were still a good distance out from the Command ship, and Renjun estimated it would be a few hours at the least. He checked that the computers were functioning without errors (they were; he didn't see any frantically blinking messages or hear any alarms), and decided that Jeno's idea had not been half bad. Renjun pushed a button on one of the walls and settled into the pilot's seat which emerged, and kicked his legs out. It'd been a while since he'd been near another person, and Renjun found himself surprised by how quickly Jeno's own sleepy fumes made him sleepy.

And for once, Renjun was not terribly concerned about whether or not he would be in danger while he slept. Jeno had not asked to be abducted and was likely still upset about that, but he also had no idea how to pilot the ship and get himself home. Renjun's final thoughts were that he would either live or die, and that at that moment he did not particularly care which. Anything besides hard labor, that is.

Time slipped by them as their ship sailed towards the head of the fleet. Renjun woke when one of the computers chimed, alerting him that they had reached the edge of the effective field of gravity created by the Command ship.

_He should wake Jeno, right?_ It was a logical thought, but still Renjun hesitated. He did not know how his new human companion would react, and did not want a fight. Jeno was useful to him alive, Renjun reminded himself, because that way it was unlikely that both of them would be killed. Because even though he didn't know Jeno very well, Renjun knew that he would still feel remorse if he was responsible for the human's death. _He had just been wanting to create a pentagram in a field, after all._

A pentagram.... why did a pentagram sound familiar to Renjun? He knew what the shape was geometrically, and could draw one out if necessary, but he could not understand why Jeno had been creating one in his field. Something seemed to wriggle in the back of his mind, however, so Renjun gave it time to emerge as he let his ship pilot itself into the gaping landing bay of the Command ship.

It came to Renjun when the ship had touched down on the metal surface with a soft jolt. Pentagrams were used for summoning demons. It was like a crop circle to a Scout; it was a call to work, and demons could be called by their bosses to be assigned tasks. Or curious humans, apparently.

Dread curled its clammy fingers around him. "Jeno," Renjun said, and he watched as the other awoke and something close to happy flashed through his eyes at the sight of Renjun. "Your pentagram. Did you summon a demon with it?"

Demons and Radem were not sworn enemies. They were not enemies at all, in fact, but just the thought of a demon being nearby was enough to put dread into the hearts of most extraterrestrial beings.

Yes, aliens knew of demons, and demons knew of aliens. Humanity was relatively ignorant, mostly because the people who talked of aliens and demons tended to be silenced in a rather efficient and neat manner. It wasn't good for PR, in truth, and the aliens couldn't help but say it made their job a touch easier, even though angels had gotten an unfairly good deal and celebrity status. There were fewer people to avoid when people did not _want_ to see you, which most alien species approved of. Humans like what is easily explained, Renjun reasoned, but that did not soothe his soul at all.

"I didn’t see any demons immediately," Jeno said, "Although we should check when we go back to give Johnny control over the farm."

Renjun sighed in relief; he simply couldn't help it. "Alright. It's time for us to go. I have an expedition helmet in the back, I'll go get it for you."

Jeno watched him walk away. He wasn't entirely sure when it had happened, but he realized that he felt safe in Renjun's presence. Perhaps that was not the right thing to feel when the alien had abducted him, but there it was, and Jeno did not think that he wanted to fight the feeling. There were much more productive things he could do, like following Renjun so that he was ready to exit the ship.

His extraterrestrial companion returned with not only a helmet, but a full suit. It looked somewhat like the spacesuits Jeno had seen on the television, and Jeno had a sudden thought. _How many humans had been on an alien spaceship in total?_ As he looked at Renjun then, he considered asking, but decided on a variant of that question instead.

"Has a human been on the Command ship before?" Jeno asked, rather than what he wanted to ask, which was, in short, _am I going to die?_

Renjun set the helmet and suit down in front of Jeno. It was a rather amusing image, actually, a shadow with a rainbow aura carrying supplies for a spacewalk, but Jeno did not laugh. "I do not know," the alien admitted, and Jeno nodded his head. "But you will be safe with me. Do not leave my side." Then, "You may put the suit on over your clothes."

An unsteady exhale. Jeno had been worried about so many different things that he hadn't even gotten to changing his clothes yet. Renjun did not seem to mind, but Jeno still appreciated the thought. "Thank you," he said, and the alien turned. Well, it was difficult to tell if he turned, but the black and aurora changed the way it was facing, and Jeno called that a turn. The suit went on relatively easily, and covered him all the way up his neck. He slid it on over his shoulders as he thought of all the little things he would have wanted to do on his farm one more time if he had had the chance: feeding his cattle in the morning, tossing the horses their breakfast flakes, saddling up to check the perimeter, watching the calves. The helmet came last, and when it suctioned over Jeno's head, a bright display appeared on the front glass.

It was not in English. Jeno watched in amazement as it scrolled through what appeared to be text of a sort, and realized that the aliens he had been abducted by had their own language. Not that he was particularly surprised by that—humans had so many different languages and dialects of their own, and well, they were humans. These were aliens. Perhaps they too had different languages and different dialects, and this was just the one that Renjun happened to know. Maybe Renjun knew more languages than the one Jeno was currently seeing written out. The thought brought a sudden joy to Jeno, and he could not help but smile behind his tinted viewscreen.

The viewscreen may have been tinted, but Renjun still saw it, and it made him light up a bit brighter. The increase in emotion spent more of his energy, and it radiated outwards. Jeno could not see his smile, but he could see the change in brightness even through the tint, and smiled wider.

"We should go," Renjun reminded him. _What was he feeling?_ It was not amusement, it was closer to how he felt when he had to appear before the Masters. He decided to ponder it more on the walk over. "I'll open the hatch, and you can pass the fuel down to me. Then we can carry it where it needs to go."

"It's a plan," Jeno said, and Renjun busied himself pushing buttons to make the hatch open and the ladder lower. Jeno quickly realized that what he had thought was a simple process actually required many more steps than he had expected, and wondered if Renjun could teach him how to pilot the ship, or even work it if he could not pilot it.

Soon, Renjun was climbing down to stand on the ladder. "Whenever you're ready," he called, and Jeno started lifting the odd, glowing crates of fuel and passing them to Renjun, who climbed down the ladder and stacked them on the ground. They were still glowing that strange, unearthly blue, and Jeno could not help but wonder if they were radioactive. Was that radiation bleeding from them? It certainly looked like something Jeno might see if he put on the latest science fiction/action blockbuster movie, right before lots of explosions and gratuitous fight scenes that would have been better off being cut.

Once the fuel was all stacked outside of the ship, Renjun called to Jeno and told him to climb on down. Jeno noticed that the Scout was not wearing a suit or helmet of his own, and suspected that he had been given the supplies to avoid spreading or contracting diseases. "Just follow me and stick close, and we will be alright," Renjun said.

Renjun said it, but he did not believe it. Terror was beginning to creep alongside him as they walked, and each step that he took towards facing the Masters seemed to become harder and harder. It was like being stuck in sand, or perhaps his feet themselves were being turned to lead. Renjun took a quick look down and saw only the shadow of his body, now faintly glowing, and knew that he had to keep moving. The only way he would get more energy was if he gave the fuel to the Masters, was the good Scout he was supposed to be, and that thought kept him going.

The Command ship looked exactly like it had the countless times Renjun had done this run.The corridors were well lit, but the walls were gunmetal grey and unpainted. Rivets were visible in them, but it was clear that the ship was not held together by nuts and bolts—this was the Command ship, the pride and joy of the Radem fleet, and it was the most beautiful of them all. In fact, the closer they walked to the Chamber of the Masters, the more decorated the ship became. Soon the walls had become ornate carvings, and Jeno admired them as he walked. They seemed to tell a story, he discovered, not unlike how churches had parts of the Bible shown in stained glass to share religion with the illiterate. In this case, Jeno was illiterate, and he could do nothing but admire.

The glowing boxes did not change at all as Jeno carried them past the carvings, but they did cast an eerie glow over the metal. For some reason it felt like they were walking through a place of great history, an august place, like the statues of war generals Jeno had seen in the center of the biggest town he had been to.

That reminded Jeno of his thoughts from the afternoon before he had been abducted, about never having been more than fifty miles away from where he had been born. At least he lived on a different ranch than his parents had, but that had not stopped him from being bored.

At that moment, walking through the belly of the most important alien ship in the Milky Way galaxy at that time, Jeno was _not_ bored. He was sure that whenever he became bored in the future, if he ever was allowed to return to his farm and lived long enough to return to his old lifestyle, Jeno would think back on this moment. It was impossible to feel restless in the face of such grandeur, and with that thought, they came upon what Jeno saw as a hall.

It was not a hall. It was a chamber, and in fact this was a particularly well-known chamber amongst the Radem. Numbers wise, few Radem ever stepped foot inside it, and this was certainly the first time a being who was not Radem had entered it. And it was a human, too, and that was of no little significance.

As Jeno followed Renjun towards an imposing circle of light in the center of the room, he wondered again if he should write a memoir if he returned to Earth. The idea made him want to snort, but the more he considered it, the more he thought this would be a good story. But he had little time to linger, because Renjun was whispering to him to put his load of glowing fuel boxes down into a small chute off on their right. Even the chute was ornamented, shaped like the face of a creature Jeno had no name for. He had no name for it, but it looked like a monster, and he stared at its blank metal eye as he carefully lowered his boxes into it.

"Now we pass through the Veil," Renjun said. "I do not know what will happen to you, but you must face the Masters if you wish to live."

Jeno looked at the curtain of light and shivered. It was very much deserving of the name the Veil, and he could feel the energy coming off of it from where they were. It felt like static, Jeno thought, and it made his skin tingle.

It was a strong feeling, and not a good feeling. Jeno was unsure he would see anything after he crossed through the Veil, so he made his final wish and nodded to Renjun. "I am ready to face the Masters."

He took a last glance around the chamber as they approached the Veil. It was a cavernous, echoing space of dark metal and strange carvings, but in a way that made it feel more familiar. More human. Like he had accidentally stepped back in time to a long-forgotten community of humans, and was witnessing their early days. Renjun stayed by him with every step, and when Jeno was only a few inches away from the pouring orange light, the alien seemed to pause and wait for him.

Jeno took a step.

It felt like passing through water. Faintly charged, barely more than a shock, yet not enough to electrocute him. Jeno had little time to continue considering it, however, because he and Renjun were facing a semicircle of thrones and the beings who occupied them.

If Renjun was a void surrounded by a rainbow of radiation, the Masters were _the_ Void. Jeno could see that they had eyes, even a true face coming from the black, but it looked just off enough to make him uneasy. In a way, Renjun's blankness was less unnerving, because it did not look like a human gone wrong.

A human. The Masters were not human, and the more human parts of their appearances only made this more clear. Each had a different light surrounding them, and the one in the center Jeno could not see any color coming from. He assumed that it was their leader, however, because Renjun knelt in its direction, silent.

Jeno decided to copy Renjun's posture. He wanted to make it through the experience if at all possible, and as he ducked his head, he could not help but realize he could finally hear Renjun breathing. It was a touch too measured, much like his own, and it was then that Jeno realized that Renjun was _afraid._

It was an unsettling thought.

"Scout Renjun," came a voice. It did not sound exactly like Renjun when it was said, but Jeno recognized the name quickly enough. There were more words that boomed in the circle hemmed by the electromagnetic field, and these he could not understand. He let the sound break over him like a tide, listening to the foreign language and feeling rather helpless over his own fate. With this came the realization that his fate was resting in Renjun's hands, and as Jeno began to feel the strain of kneeling in the unnatural position, he was unsurprised to discover that he was no longer alarmed by the thought.

If Renjun had wanted to kill him, he would have done it long ago.

Motion in the corner of Jeno's eye. He knew that it was Renjun rising to stand, but he stayed in his position until he was told he could stop. "Jeno, you may rise." It was Renjun's voice, and he trusted it, so Jeno unfolded himself and kept his gaze trained at his feet. Tiling covered the circle's floor, and he was struck by the resemblance of the Radem art to the human art he knew.

"You may look upon the Masters."

Jeno did, and saw that the Masters were all staring at him. It was clear that they were looking at him, and he fought the urge to flee or cower under their gazes. He might have been at their mercy, but he would never become prey. The Master in the center caught his eye, and Jeno did not drop it even though his eyes began to burn.

It was radiation, he realized, a light outside the range of what he could see. His eyes were literally burning, even through the visor.

"The Master Prime has congratulated us on our work, and deigned that we may...." Renjun's voice trailed off, and Jeno wondered what was going through his mind. What was keeping the rest of his words trapped in his throat, fighting to get out. "We may continue our Scouting work. Together. Any crop circle we scan, we can collect. We are... we are Scout Primes now."

It did not feel real to Jeno, any of what was happening inside that circle of pouring light. "Thank you, Master Prime," he said, hoping his thankfulness was clear from his body language and tone. He was not sure how many human had interacted with the Masters before, and wanted to make a good impression for his race.

Jeno had never expected to be the one responsible for representing humanity, but there he was. Master Prime held his eye, and although the other Masters around it shifted, it stayed still. Then the booming voice returned, and Jeno knew that the Master was speaking because everything around them went entirely silent.

Renjun translated for him. "The Master Prime accepts your thanks, and wishes you good fortune with your scouting."

As the pair of Scouts left, Jeno could not help but wonder if a blankness with a face and burning radiation could wish good fortune, but decided not to question it. Jeno did not know it yet, but a Radem _could_ wish good fortune, and they could do much more than even that.

When they arrived back at the ship, Jeno realized something had changed about Renjun—as Renjun turned to face him before they went up the ladder, he could see eyes.

Jeno could see eyes. They were gold in and amongst the void, and before Jeno knew it, he could see other features appearing as well.

Renjun had a face. Renjun also had four arms and some wicked fangs, and Jeno could not help but jump when he saw them. The reaction seemed to surprise Renjun, and Jeno panicked further when he realized he could read the expression straight from Renjun's face. "Is everything alright? The Veil did not harm you?"

He was not sure if the Veil had harmed him, or if he was seeing things, or if Renjun really had suddenly manifested some twisted human... components. "You have a face!" It came out with an appropriate amount of disbelief, and Renjun's mouth dropped open. Jeno flinched at the human gesture of surprise, and wanted nothing more than to run away. But there was nowhere for him to go, nowhere he could run without having Renjun's ship that he did not even know how to fly.

"I usually have a face," Renjun admitted, and it was light enough in tone that Jeno found himself the tiniest bit appeased. "I usually have four arms, too, but I did not have enough energy to provide for them."

Jeno pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fuck," he said. "I'm definitely not dreaming."

Renjun's chuckle was a touch mocking. "This isn't a dream." He extended one of his many arms and inspected it. The radiation bleeding from it was much less, as he was better prepared to heal himself since he had more energy. "I will be able to dream again now, though."

A thought of his farm entered Jeno's mind. "Fine. I don't care how many arms you have, or whether your face is smiling, or whatever else you've now manifested. All I want is to get to Johnny and to tell him to look after my farm while we do our duty." Jeno laughed then, once and a bit high and frantic in tone. "The duty I did not ask for, and got only because you screwed up your mission."

The added appendages meant that Renjun could cross his arms, which is exactly what he did. "I did mess up, yes," he said, "but I did also meet you."

It wiped the sadistic smile right off of Jeno's face. "And?"

This was a scenario Renjun had not prepared for. All his life, he had prepared to be a Scout, to spend the majority of his long lifetime alone on hostile planets, loading and unloading fuel for the good of the fleet. He had never even been close enough to another being to touch them since he was born, and was very unprepared for what he now asked.

"Will you be my friend?"

  
  


It was quiet inside Renjun's ship. Jeno was not asleep, and he was not pretending to be, and Renjun was not asleep, but he was pretending to be. He kept his eyes closed and breaths relatively shallow as he listened to the human stand and begin to walk across the cockpit.

Renjun wondered whether Jeno would crash them.

He hadn't heard a word from the other since his abrupt question back on the Command ship. At this point, Renjun did not particularly care if Jeno crashed them, and he rolled over and tried to go to sleep for real this time.

The last thing Renjun expected to hear was footsteps coming over to him, but that was what he heard before he fell asleep. Well, footsteps and a quiet remark: "Of course I will be your friend."

❂ ❂ ❂

Lee Jeno had always had a kind heart. It was the kind of heart that was soft and strong at the same time. He was the one who would give a neighbor a call unprompted if he felt like they might have been going through a hard time, who would make food for a family in town with a new baby, who would stay and comfort a horse with a broken leg until the vets arrived.

Lee Jeno had always had a kind heart, and he could not ignore how well he and Renjun had gotten along following the initial abduction. At least now they were on equal terms, and he was going to be able to keep his farm. Johnny would care for it–they had returned to ask him and he had said yes, but Jeno would still keep it under his ownership.

The pentagram field had also been remarkably demon-free, much to the relief of Renjun.

Renjun slept and dreamed of flames. Jeno eventually slept and dreamed of stars.

  
  


The next Target they reached had boxes which glowed yellow. They had been talking before they arrived, their temporary hostility dissolved at Jeno's words.

"Why are these glowing yellow?" Jeno asked. He could not help but wonder if there were labor unions for this kind of work, in case something terrible happened to them. Radiation poisoning, or something like that.

Renjun could not shrug with his arms laden with the heavy crates, but Jeno could tell that was what he intended. "A different kind of fuel, I suppose. There are pink ones, too, and orange ones, and green ones, and I've heard there are even indigo and violet ones."

"Hmm." It was quiet in the field. It always was, no matter what particular crop the field was used for. Corn was by far the most prevalent, Jeno had found, and he wondered whether that was because it was easier for the scanners to pick up. "Do we get another assignment straight away?"

They were loading the boxes into the ship then. There were more crates this time, but Renjun had mentioned something about being paid more the more crates there were and the closer to indigo the color they emitted was. "Not necessarily. The higher ranked you are as a Scout, the more you get paid per mission and the fewer missions you need to work. Eventually, they will pay for you to train future Scouts and then retire wherever you would like. The fleet and the Masters take care of you."

Jeno considered this. It was reassuring, he thought, to know that they did have a future outside of their Scout work. He wondered what Renjun was thinking about doing once they were finished, and decided it couldn't hurt to ask. "Do you know what you want to do once you retire?"

It was a topic Renjun generally tried to avoid thinking about. He hadn't known anything besides Scouting for so long, and he had known it would be his life's work for, well, most of his life. "I haven't thought about it," Renjun said, because it was as close to the truth as he was willing to offer himself at the moment. "I try not to think about it, keep myself focused on my work so I don't make any mistakes."

The problem with Renjun's avoidance was that the day of his retirement was approaching rapidly. He knew what becoming a Scout Prime meant—a lot of pay, but also a short timeframe.

"You could always join me on the farm," Jeno offered. "If they don't let us go at the same time, then know I'll be back there, tending to my land and animals. There’s always space enough for my friends there, for as long as they need."

It was a bit too much, a bit too quickly, but everything about the two of them had been like that. So there, bathed in the bright overhead light of the Radem ship, Renjun and Jeno made a deal. Safety for safety. A life for a life.

They worked their way through job after job. Renjun and Jeno carried lots of yellow crates, and quite a few blue crates, and even got a violet crate. Renjun had never seen a box that glowed like it before. They had been working together for a little over a week then, Jeno realized when he checked his phone back on Earth, so practically no time at all. Time seemed to go faster for the Radem than for humans, or at least they moved through it faster.

A strange sort of energy came from the violet crate. Jeno did not know how he could tell it was energy, only that deep down inside, he _knew._ Renjun seemed to be able to feel it too, because for the first time, he reached out and took Jeno's hand as they prepared to transport the singular crate. It was not an odd gesture, but it seemed to carry a significant amount of weight, and Jeno did not know what to make of it. He wondered when the last time Renjun had held someone's hand had been.

It was never. Renjun had never held someone's hand. He had been taken from his family early and prepared for school, prepared for his job which was decided for him before even his first memory.

Renjun remembered the other students. He would see them sometimes, although it was rare, and there would be a moment of shared recollection. A sort of _I know you, and you know me, and we know each other better now because we are living the same lives at the same time and working for the same force._

It was a quiet life, Renjun's Scouting. Things rarely went wrong, which was good because when they _did_ go wrong, they were rarely fixable.

It was a quiet life, Jeno's farming. Things rarely went wrong, although he knew that he had been lucky. He'd always had a support system, and options.

Their ship touched down on the dark metal of the Command ship. It was practically ingrained in them now, how the system went: pick up fuel at a crop circle Target, load it into the ship, fly back to the Command ship, unload the fuel, deposit the boxes, and report to the Masters. Jeno did not mind the routine for now, it gave him a sense of clarity and security about the whole extraterrestrial situation that he was unsure he would have had otherwise.

He did wonder how Renjun had managed to do this job for so long, however. He had not asked how long it had been since he had started, but Jeno instinctively knew that it had been many years. Most of his life, likely, and the thought filled him with something he was not afraid to call sadness.

It was sad, Jeno thought, how much of space Renjun had seen, and how little of space he had actually experienced.

They carried the violet box together. It was heavy, much heavier than any of the individual crates they had carried before. It did not even swing as they walked, the box held between them by the handles, and Jeno and Renjun both thought that that _meant_ something, but did not voice their suspicions out loud.

_Pay and retirement for Renjun,_ Jeno wished when he closed his eyes. He thought that the reason Renjun had never seen an indigo crate before was because it was the final mission for those who gathered them, but he did not know how to share that with Renjun without upsetting him. If his hunches were correct, Renjun had known little besides his work over the years, and Jeno was unsure how well he would adapt to _not_ Scouting.

"One, two, three!" They hefted the box up together and sent it down into the chute with the creature design, then dusted off their hands and looked at each other.

Renjun was still looking human, albeit with a few more limbs than average. They'd had lots of Scouting jobs since they were recruited, and Jeno had eventually figured out that it was passing through the Veil that recharged Renjun's energy. And that if it was the Veil which recharged energy, that the Masters were probably always at full capacity. They did seem to be the leaders of the fleet and therefore of the Radem, Jeno reasoned, so it made sense to him.

Jeno was still looking human, albeit with a bit less of a tan than usual. Renjun had been looking at him a lot recently, and thankfully all the space travel did not seem to have to affected his health yet. That had been a large worry of Renjun's, and he could not help but want to return Jeno to Earth soon. His partner was a good companion in the blackness of space, and did not complain about how they had to travel farther to reach the Command ship each trip, but Renjun did not want him to be harmed. He didn't even know if a human had been traveling in space for that long.

They passed through the Veil together. It still tingled, and after walking through it, Jeno could always feel a bit of anxious energy thrumming through him. It usually settled at some point during their report to the Masters.

The Masters no longer scared Jeno like they had at first. He did not speak much, afraid to speak out of turn, but the only one who still actively _scared_ him was Master Prime. It was clear that Master Prime was the leader of the Masters, and that every one of the others, from the indigo to the crimson, revered it. Renjun seemed to revere all of the Masters, so Jeno followed his lead.

This time was no exception. The Masters were gathered in their usual places, their light like the scattering of a prism, and as always, the sight filled Jeno with awe. "Scout Renjun, Scout Jeno," Master Prime greeted, and then it began speaking to Renjun in their language.

Renjun did not wait to translate before he was guiding Jeno out of the circle. He did not speak, even when Jeno asked him what was going on, only kept walking faster and faster until they were jogging together to the ship. It was only when the hatch had shut behind them that he stopped, and Jeno realized that his hands were shaking, badly.

"We're being retired," he said. "We've been paid, the Masters gave me this and are funding a bank account for you on Earth." The "this" to which Renjun referred was a pendant, a yellow stone on a metal necklace. The more Jeno looked at the stone, the more movement he could see inside it, and he realized rather quickly that it was not a stone at all: it was the material of the Veil, captured inside thick glass. It would keep Renjun's energy topped up without him needing to recharge upon returning with fuel, which would allow him his freedom.

Jeno had a sudden thought which made his blood boil. _Were the Masters using the Veil to control who deserved to live, and who deserved to die?_ Not that Jeno was certain whether the Radem could die, but Renjun had certainly been running on empty after their first Target run. But Jeno knew that he could not ask about monopolies just then, because Renjun was already looking more distraught than Jeno had ever seen him.

"Hey," said Jeno. "Remember what I said? There's always a place for you at my farm. You could help me with the cattle, I think they'd like you a lot."

The Radem raised his head then, and Jeno saw true emotion in his unearthly golden eyes. "I do not know how I could. I have... enjoyed having you as a friend, but we are from two different worlds. We do not belong together."

It stung a lot more than Jeno had thought it would. He knew that Renjun was shocked, and Renjun was hurting, but he did not want to accept those as excuses. "Fine. But you're taking me on a joyride first." Jeno was the first human he knew of to have been _working_ for aliens, and like hell he was going to let himself not enjoy the benefits of having a spaceship and pilot at his disposal.

Renjun seemed to have faded then, as if the fight had left him. "Where do you want to go?"

"Saturn. I want to step onto Titan. Then a trip around the sun, and back to my farm." Part of Jeno just wanted to go home and see Stella, but he also knew that he would be better off doing something most people, and especially kids, only dreamed of. "Not like I'll be seeing you around much after this, anyways."

With that, he turned and walked off to the back of the ship, where the bunk was. Renjun could sleep in the chair, Jeno thought. He knew the Radem had had a rough day, but he was beyond cranky, and he was also very tired. Crossing the Veil always took a lot out of him, although Jeno had never been able to figure out why.

The ship's back wall was painted cream. Jeno stared at it until sleep came to him and carried him away. He dreamed of his farm at home, of being outside his farmhouse and seeing Stella from the window. It was night, and her paws were up on the windowsill as she barked, and barked, and barked. Jeno could tell she was upset, but he could neither reach her nor see why she was so worked up.

He could feel his dream slipping away from him when he saw _them—_ dark shapes moving in the corner of his vision. There were two of them, and they made the skin of dream Jeno crawl even as he was pulled back into the present. Renjun was standing over him, and Jeno realized that he was no longer afraid of the blackness and the gold features which peeked out from it. "You were talking in your sleep," the alien said, rather cautiously, as if he was concerned about Jeno’s words.

Renjun was certainly concerned about Jeno’s words. He had heard a name multiple times—a human's name—and was not sure why he was so upset about that. Jeno rubbed his eyes, and it pulled his shirt up a bit. Renjun tried not to notice. "What was I saying?"

"'Stella,' over and over again." Renjun did not want to get his hopes up. He knew that Jeno was a human, and his own person, and that he had _just_ told Jeno they could not continue to be together. So why did Renjun want it so much?

Renjun had not wanted many things in his life. He had wanted to be a Scout—or at least he had thought he wanted to be a Scout—and to move up to higher powered fuel, but he had achieved both of those. Now he did not know what he wanted, except that he wanted Jeno to be a part of it.

He knew that there were many things he had not experienced that most Radem had. Renjun knew that very few of his people had ever seen the Masters, and was honored that he had had the privilege of working for them. But he did know that other Radem led very different lives—they sold food or goods for a living, they went out with friends at the end of the day, and they started families.

Families. Renjun had never seen a child since he was a child growing up with the other prospective Scouts, but he was relatively sure there was more to a family than just children. Right?

When Jeno spoke, it surprised him. Renjun had not realized how far into his own head he had gotten. "I was dreaming about my dog, Stella."

"Dog?" Renjun asked. He had never heard of a dog.

"My dog." Jeno was almost dismissive, but as he continued reading confusion in Renjun's features, he realized that the other had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. "She's an animal that I keep as a pet. I feed her and care for her, and she helps me with the other animals on the farm. She'll lie at the foot of my bed and let me pet her head when I'm stressed."

Well, Renjun knew what an animal was, but he had never heard of a "pet" before, either. "I don't know what a pet is, or why you would keep an animal in your home, but I'm glad that she brings you joy." Jeno smiled then, and Renjun knew that he had an idea.

"You can meet her when you drop me off," he said.

Renjun considered it. He had never met a dog before, had never really interacted with any animals of Earth besides Jeno and the human makers, but he saw little harm in it. "Sure," he said, "I would love to."

  
  


They went to Titan first. Jeno did not know exactly how long it took for them to get there, but he knew it was only a handful of days, maybe a week at most. He watched out the front viewscreen as the planet seemed to grow before his eyes, what was once just a speck of yellow-brown light in the distance becoming a looming giant.

Saturn's rings stretched out before him, and where many humans would have been vibrating with excitement, at that moment he was filled with stillness.

They made an orbit so Jeno could see the various moons. He turned on his phone and videoed the passes they made, knowing that no one would believe him if he shared them but wanting to have them saved so that in the far future, he could look back on this moment and remember. Remember how he felt, seeing that giant of a planet before him in a moment he had dreamed of as a child, and remember how it felt to have Renjun beside him.

  
  


They did not land on Titan. Renjun did not know how his ship would handle it, so they did not go anywhere near the liquid methane oceans, and steered around the moon instead. Jeno stared down at its depths and wondered if there was life down there, far below, and whether he was the first human to see where it was in person. Not that he could see life down there, but he could imagine it, and imagination was the strongest weapon in Jeno's arsenal.

As they went around the planet and explored what they could of its moons, Renjun watched the reflection of green and gold in the shine of Jeno's eyes. He wondered if his would ever shine like that, shine with joy and wonder. (They did. Jeno was busy looking at both the window and the way Renjun's eyes mirrored the colors of the planet. He wanted to trace the rainbow of his outline, too, and see if it gave him the same odd thrill as the Veil had.)

❂ ❂ ❂

_The night was as black as the space Renjun and Jeno sailed through. It was a particularly sticky night, and not in a humid way. The blackness—the being of the night—stuck to clothes, to cars, to children as they lay asleep in their beds._

_Something was coming to the first thing. The first thing had eaten down to the bones before it had been called back to the pentagram. It no longer had the energy to leave, but something was coming for it._

_From out of the blackness came Jihoon. He did not start at a destination, but rather came from the stickiness of the black. The stars overhead were hot, so very hot, but Jihoon basked in their heat as he walked across the grass towards the field where the first thing was. His footsteps made soft sounds, muffled even in the quiet._

_The first thing rose at his approach. It had been sitting in the pentagram, picking at the broken corn stems to pass the time, but now it ceased all motion. And seeing a Lord of Hell with the guitar of lost souls in one hand and the flame of eternal regrets in the other, it felt true fear for the first time._

_"You have failed in your duty," said Jihoon, Lord of Hell. "You will be abandoned."_

_The first thing bowed its head. It did not speak until the Lord had left, and when it did, it spoke to the empty night. "Please," it said, and it felt its star flare._

##  _The Devil Went Down to Georgia  
(But He Didn’t Stick Around) _

An orbit around the Sun was their final detour, as per Jeno's request. He could not help but hope that Renjun's ship would suddenly malfunction, giving them more time together. It did not. It continued on, its nuclear reactor fueling it and sending them on, and on, and on. Renjun dimmed the viewscreen until it was dim enough for them to watch out the window. Jeno could see every detail, from the flares to the variations in color.

It felt like a heart.

Renjun tried to keep himself calm, keep himself together as he spent his final moments at Jeno's side. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

It was, but Jeno looked over at him in surprise. Jeno did not know _why_ he was surprised, as he knew that animals could feel, and that humans could feel, and therefore it made sense that aliens could feel. And he'd known that Renjun had been afraid when facing the Masters, and Jeno's assumption that he had not been able to appreciate beauty, feel joy, filled him with hot shame.

"It is," he replied, and if Renjun sensed his thoughts, he did not say. "I almost don't want to leave."

It was daytime when they touched down beside Jeno's farmhouse. It was a calm day. Jeno wondered how Johnny had been faring; his friend had not been living in the house, but had been asked to take care of the farm.

Renjun decided to walk him to the door. It was only courtesy, he told himself as he tagged along beside Jeno. He didn’t look right amongst the trappings of farm life—something about his glow, his bright gold features, his void underneath, was too ethereal to exist next to the basics of Jeno's life. _No, not ethereal…. stellar._

Jeno walked up to his front door with Renjun behind him, and every step he took told him that something was _wrong._ So that was what he said. "Something's wrong." He did not know what it was, didn't even have a clue, but his farm was too quiet. Far too quiet.

Evil is not loud. Evil is silent, and it comes in the night and stays through the day.

Farms were not meant to be quiet. Jeno unlocked his door with the key he kept under the doormat and went looking for Stella.

She was not there. She was not in the kitchen, she was not in the bedroom, she was not in the cellar. She was not in the living room, she was not even hiding under the piano, and that was when Jeno realized something was seriously wrong.

Stella would not run away for no reason. Yes, he had left the dog flap open, but she had never left the house before. Jeno ran outside to check on his horses.

They were all in their stalls, but they looked _hungry_ and began kicking their stalls when Jeno entered the barn. A few had scratches across their skin, and their stalls had not been mucked for far too long. Jeno was seeing red with fury, but he was not seeing his dog. He did not even need to make a reminder to come back and care for his poor horses before he left the barn and ran to check on his cows.

He reached the field where his cattle were kept and.... there was nothing. Not a single living thing. Not even a bird or ground squirrel to be seen, let alone something as large as a cow.

What there _was,_ however, was a trail of scorched grass. It was not a fire which had spread; it was a trail of burning, only as broad across as a man and unwavering in its line. "There was a demon." Renjun's voice was low, but it had a remarkable amount of feeling in it, namely dread and fear. Jeno honestly did not blame him.

"Looks like my pentagram worked after all."

Jeno had wanted to see fire and brimstone, a big demon rising in the ring of his pentagram before his own two eyes. Instead, he had ended up being abducted right on the spot, and had missed the demon who had apparently arrived and raised literal hell on his farm. Now all of his cows were gone, and he could not help but feel relieved that they were gone and not otherwise harmed to his knowledge. He saw no skeletons.

Renjun was stock still beside him. "We must find it. Where is our field?"

_Our field._ At first, it did not really register to Jeno, but as they were jogging over to the location of Jeno's pentagram, he realized what Renjun had said. "Do you know how to defend against a demon?" Jeno asked. He had done research into the topic, of course, but could not help but feel rather out of his element. Perhaps Renjun would know more.

"I will protect you," Renjun said. He did not sound out of breath at all from their running, and Jeno found himself mildly impressed. He would have guessed that someone who spent so much time in space would have gotten out of shape relatively quickly, but it seemed that Renjun had not. But Renjun had also not answered his question, and Jeno did not like that at all.

The pentagram was black, although it did not carry the night with it. It looked burned, not like what Jeno would have expected broken and smashed corn stalks to look like at all, but that was not what grabbed most of Jeno's attention.

There was a boy inside his pentagram. He looked young, probably Jeno's age at the oldest, and he looked... kind. He had fluffy half-white and half-black hair, bright brown eyes, and, well, the most distraught expression Jeno had ever seen. And that was saying something, considering that he had seen Renjun right after they had been let go.

"They abandoned me because of what you did, you fucker."

Well, as far as first words went, those were high on the list, if not the most memorable of all that Jeno had heard. Jeno had been prepared to ask where his cows were and to beg for their safe return, but now seeing the creature in his pentagram, he couldn't even bring himself to. It _was_ the demon, right? It certainly didn't look like fire and brimstone to Jeno, it looked like someone he might have known from high school.

Then again, the boy-demon had just called him a fucker, and all his cows were missing, so Jeno decided a bit of irritation would not be misplaced.

"I'm sorry, but where did my cows go?" Renjun was still beside Jeno, but the boy-demon did not seem to be looking at the alien at all—only Jeno—and he seemed to be looking at Jeno with a vengeance.

Boy-demon smiled then, and it did not look friendly. It looked amused, but in a way that was not creepy; it was rather delightful. In a decidedly evil way. "I ate them," he said, and Renjun shifted his weight from foot to foot. He seemed very unnerved to Jeno, even more so than the human was in that moment.

"But I didn’t see any bones?" Demons were known to twist the truth, Jeno knew, even if they could not technically _lie._ They were precise and to the letter…. or else all the media Jeno had consumed was fake.

"I ate the bones, too. The fire consumes all."

Well, that was not something Jeno had heard before. It was then that he realized that all the demon media he had consumed had been Christian, and he was quickly starting to wonder if the demon he was facing played by the same rules. Jeno had not seen any fire or brimstone, and his entire herd of cows had been eaten, down to the last calf. They had been handsome and kind creatures, and he was filled with sorrow that his decision had harmed them. The cows had been his companions, and they had been innocent. Speaking of, he still had no idea where his precious Stella was, either, and that made him even more upset. "You're a demon," Jeno said, just to double check.

"I was a demon," the boy—no, demon—said, no small hint of malice and spite in his voice. "Then you left me trapped in here for long enough that I missed the all-hands on quarterly results, and was therefore fired and abandoned by the demons. Lord Jihoon of Hell arrived in demon to tell me. In case you haven't noticed, demons are very particular about how their business is run."

For such a particularly important moment in the trio's lives, the world seemed remarkably unmoved. It continued on with the day. It was warm, but not hot; not dry, but not humid, either. It was a lovely day, but it was an average day on the farm, minus the demon and the alien and the burned crop circle-pentagram, and the consumed cows. Far too average. Jeno noticed that Renjun no longer seemed terribly out of place, since everything was out of place.

And suddenly, he wondered what had happened to Johnny.

  
  


"What do we do?" Renjun asked, words unnaturally hushed. "We can't leave him here."

"Give him to me."

They put the demon in the barn and ensnared him with a proper binding spell. "What is your name?" Jeno kept his tone steady, unwilling to give away more than he needed to.

"I don't have one." The barn was quiet, but not silent. Renjun could hear some swallows in the rafters, and maybe even a few cats out on the hunt.

Jeno was not having it. "Everybody has a name, even a nobody."

The demon closed his eyes. Tension seemed to bleed from him, but despair seemed to take its place. "The demons called me Haechan."

It had been a while since Jeno had heard or attempted Korean, but he could understand that much. "Full sun," he said. "I can call you that."

Whatever Jeno had been expecting to see, it was not a flinch. But there it was—the demon had flinched, a hint of pain crossing his features, and Jeno felt immediate remorse. "Don't call me that. Call me..." He trailed off. He did not have a bad voice at all now that Jeno was listening, it was a rather high and light voice, but it was quite different from Jeno's own. "Call me Donghyuck."

"Well, Donghyuck," Jeno drawled, "Dinner is at eight. I will bring it out to you. Do not touch any of my cats." Then he turned and addressed Renjun: "Let's go find my girl."

They searched for Stella and Johnny across the farm. They checked the paddocks and fields and paths for pawprints and footprints, and saw nothing. Evening was quickly falling, and Jeno knew that they would need to return back to the farmhouse soon. He heard a familiar rustle; it sounded like when Stella would hide in bushes to jump out and catch cats, and he knew that it was her. "Stella!" Jeno called, "Stella Blue!"

From out of the descending gloom came his dog, a bit muddy and a bit skittish but not the slightest bit bloody. "Good girl, Stella," Jeno cooed, and the shepherd broke into a run as she saw him. She ignored Renjun's presence completely, too focused on reuniting with her owner, and rolled onto her back to let Jeno rub her tummy.

"This is a dog?" Renjun asked.

"This is a dog." _This is a dog,_ Jeno smiled. Her tongue was rolling out, she smelled like hell, and she was kicking the air with joy as he pet her. "My very Stella Blue, are you ready to go home?"

Yes, Renjun was fascinated by the concept of a dog and a pet, but he was more fascinated by the way Jeno shone with joy as he reunited with her. He looked so pure in his emotion, so _human,_ that it made Renjun want to reach out and explore. Like when he saw an unfamiliar Target for the first time.

Renjun wanted to learn Jeno, he decided, and besides, he could not leave the poor unwitting human alone with a _demon_ living in his barn.

"Jeno," he began, as they were on the way back to the farmhouse. He did not know exactly how to continue, was unfamiliar with anything really outside of Scouting, but decided it couldn't hurt to ask for what had already been offered. "You told me a short while ago that there would always be a place for me here."

The sun was just beginning to threaten to disappear over the mountains. One of the downfalls to being in a valley was that the sun rose over the horizon a touch later and descended towards the horizon a touch earlier. In the rapidly fading light, Jeno's skin started to glow, and Renjun was surprised how _similar_ they seemed at that moment. 

"And I mean what I say. Would—" Jeno's voice faded out, and Renjun realized that it wasn't just him who was nervous about this. It was a rather soft revelation, like the dimming of the light. "Would you like to stay?"

He no longer had any doubts. "Yes, please," he said, and beside him, Jeno stopped walking and extended his hand. Renjun took it with the shape of his own, and they both marveled at how tangible it was. There were hands being held, a palm being pressed to another palm, fingers being entwined with other fingers. The first time Jeno and Renjun had held hands, they had both been too distracted by adrenaline to notice the physical weight of it, the way the simple touch tugged all of Renjun's attention to it at the same time that Jeno was grounded by it.

Renjun had never held someone's hand before he had held Jeno's the first time, and he it loved the second time. He did not say anything more as Jeno guided him to the door, walking slowly so that their fingers were not tugged apart. There was little that Renjun could think about besides the curl of Jeno's hand around his—it was larger, and provided a comfort he had never known he needed. Jeno pushed open the unlocked farmhouse door with his free right hand. "After you," he urged. He might never have been interested in the ladies like he had been taught in church as a child, but he had enough of the Southern hospitality left in him from his family, even though he had never lived in the South himself.

"I need to go care for my horses," Jeno sighed. "I don't think Johnny has been around here for quite a while, and I'm worried for their health." Renjun blinked at him, gold disappearing into slits for a second. "Please make yourself at home, I'll come back as soon as they have been cared for."

The Radem did not have a problem with that at all; he understood how important the horses were to Jeno's livelihood, even despite the fact that he was currently cow-less. They were like his ship, Renjun thought. That being said, Jeno had just let go of his hand, and Renjun decided to be brave and take a chance. "When you get back, can we hold hands again?"

It surprised Jeno, that much was clear, but he did not seem to be upset. "Of course! I have to cook dinner, but I can do most of that one-handed. And you can hold my hand as much as you would like."

Renjun sat on the couch after Jeno left through the front door. He marveled at the throw pillows in bright blue and traced along their fringed edges. It was a fabric he had never felt before, and he was quickly realizing how much he did not know. He had always known the life of a Scout was constraining, but he had never expected it to have affected his most basic experiences so much.

He wanted to experience all the things that were foreign to him, he decided, even the unpleasant ones. He guessed that a good place to start would be with Jeno, so Renjun eventually got off of the couch and began to walk around. He knew from his Scout training that touching things he didn’t know how to could harm him, so he observed instead. Renjun was good at observing, and he was a quick learner. He saw curtains, and china, and a cabinet filled with some bottles that had been left to Jeno.

Jeno returned from the horses as soon as he could. He had been careful in mucking their stalls, grooming them, feeding them, and checking their waterers, but at the back of his mind was Renjun. Renjun, with his very tangible hand, and the heat of it, and the way it fit so nicely in his own. By the time he left the horse barn, he had decided to leave the cattle paddock repairs for another day.

The Radem was waiting for him near the kitchen. He had never seen a kitchen before in his life, and it was clear from the awe in his eyes. "Hey," Jeno greeted, and he watched the way Renjun perked up at his voice. "Sorry, that needed to be done. Just let me wash my hands now, then I can start prepping dinner for us and our demonic pal in the barn."

Renjun was quiet under the sound of the running tap, but he watched in silent amazement. "What is that?" he asked once Jeno had stepped back and turned the water off.

"It's a faucet," Jeno answered. "It carries water."

"But water comes in packs," Renjun said, and he sounded so serious and so certain that a little bit of Jeno's heart shattered.

"Not always... In space, maybe, but not usually on Earth."

The alien groaned. "There's so much that's new." Jeno watched him, could see the way his brain was metaphorically smoking as he tried to comprehend all the new things and all the new stimuli. "I don't know how I'm going to do this..."

Jeno reached out to one of his arms and interlaced what he hoped were their fingers. He could not see any detail inside the blackness, but he assumed that he had aimed right when he felt Renjun take his hand back. "One step at a time, Renjun, and I'll be by your side the whole time."

Renjun smiled then, and Jeno realized that now that he’d become more observant, he could see more of a humanoid shape in the blackness. The hint of a curve, perhaps, and he wanted to know more. But Renjun was sighing and playing with his fingers, and Jeno was almost distracted enough that he forgot what he was doing, until he saw the peppers nearby.

"Are you making dinner now?" Renjun asked, and Jeno hummed. It was a good sound, a rich sound, and a sound that Renjun had never heard before. He wanted to hear it again.

"Yes," said Jeno. "Have you seen a meal cooked before?" He was planning a simple stir-fry, since he had a few ingredients that were still good and wanted to use them up before he went to the town market for more.

"No, I’ve only had meals at the mess or in packages. Usually freeze-dried or some sort of ‘mystery meat'."

"Whatever was cheapest for the fleet, I assume," Jeno snorted, but it did not sound like he was disappointed in Renjun, and that was a relief. "Well, here's how I usually make stir-fry. Pork tonight, and maybe Mississippi roast tomorrow, since I think I have some leftovers in the freezer that will feed the three of us."

Jeno could not see exactly what was happening, but assumed that Renjun was raising a metaphorical eyebrow. "The three of us?"

The thing was that Jeno was very much a man of his word, and once he had promised something, he would uphold that promise until it was fulfilled. "I told our demon Donghyuck in the barn that we would give him dinner, did I not?"

Renjun colored; or, rather, his outline colored a bit brighter and closer to white. Jeno wondered why it changed color, and decided to ask once Renjun was a bit more settled in. "You did say that we would give him dinner at eight." The Radem had always prided himself on his memory, since it was one of the defining traits of superior Scouts.

Thoughts of his past life made Renjun's stomach drop, and not in a pleasant way. He began to brood, half of his mind on what he had lost and half on the feeling of Jeno's hand in his own. 

"Penny for your thoughts?"

It did not startle him, but it did refocus him. He looked to see that Jeno was chopping the pepper, attention and eyes focused on the task at hand... yet Jeno had recognized his drop in mood. Nobody had noticed before. It was generally assumed that the moods of the Scouts did not matter as long as they delivered on time, and Renjun had never questioned this before. He had never thought much of his thoughts before, so why was Jeno offering him money for them? Was it another silly human phrase? "You want my thoughts?"

"Yeah." Jeno was looking at him then, and the stars that Renjun was missing were in his eyes.

"I don't know what I know, now that I've left all that I've known."

_Hmm, that was a trap made of words if Jeno had ever heard one._ "You're missing your work?"

Renjun did not say anything right away, but Jeno gave him space to speak. "I do not know," he said after a moment. "Maybe. I do not know what I do not know, and I do not know anything outside of what I have been taught by my fleet, so it is almost as if I know nothing."

Jeno hummed again, and once again Renjun thought that it was a lovely sound. "Well, there's some that I can show you and help you discover, but there's even more that you can learn on your own. There is so much that you can see in this wide world, and that's even without the lovely ship we have sitting next to the feed barn. That'll give us even more to see, if you ever want to."

"We'll start with dinner, right?" Jeno nodded. He knew that it would take a while for Renjun to acclimate and begin to process all that had happened, so he was happy to let the previous topic drop.

"Yes," he said. "I usually make my meals from scratch, and that isn’t going to change, only I now have to cook enough for three grown men. Or almost-men. It should be fine, just with fewer leftovers. Do you know what your favorite meal is?"

The Radem thought for a while. "Hmm. I liked the special package they'd give us on fleet holidays, because it had sauce along with the normal meat. That made it a bit less dry and easier to eat."

That brought something to Jeno's eyes, and Renjun didn't like it at all. Jeno looked—Jeno looked sad to him, and that made Renjun even sadder. He didn't know what was bad about what he had said. The meal had been his favorite, but maybe Jeno had wanted him to lie? He hadn't ever lied to the Masters, but sometimes the other Scouts would tell lies, and that was not frowned upon.

"I will cook everything that I know how to cook, and lots of things that I can try for the first time, too, until we find what your favorite is." It was a little sentence, a simple sentence, but something about the way it was delivered so earnestly mixed with the way Jeno gave his hand a little squeeze made Renjun feel warm and comfortable. "Everything I can, even if I don't like it."

"There's really no need for that," Renjun protested. "Whatever you give me will be more than I could ask for."

"But you deserve the best," Jeno insisted. "I need both hands for a moment, I'm sorry." Renjun could see that he was right, because at some point, he had sliced up the rest of the ingredients and was now going to wash the rice. Once it was cleaned and on its way to boiling on the stove, he set a skillet onto the burner next to the rice and began to pour liquids that Renjun had never seen into it. It was hypnotizing, the way the meal came together, and more than that, it was _slow._ Renjun had never imagined that it could have been slow to make a meal, when previously he'd only downed it and kept going about his job.

While the meal was cooking away, Jeno had no more prep work to do, so he washed his hands and then took hold of Renjun's. It was both of Renjun’s top set of hands this time, and if having one hand held had been nice, this was heavenly. Renjun never wanted to let go, could never remember feeling like he was floating before, not even when he had been steering his ship through the emptiness of interstellar space.

"Nice, right?"

"Hmm?" Renjun did not know what Jeno was referring to, but he thought that he could feel the meaning behind it.

"Smells nice?" 

It did smell nice. Renjun could not identify almost all of what he was smelling, but he liked it, and he wondered how it would taste on his tongue. Probably more similar to the holiday meals than the normal ones, he guessed, because he could see liquid. There had even been liquid added to the rice—not that Renjun knew exactly what rice was. But it smelled good.

"It does," Renjun agreed, and he watched the way Jeno lit up with excitement at his words. Perhaps Renjun's words had more power to them than he had expected. He'd never really been able to speak to anyone, let alone speak his mind, so this freedom was an entirely new experience for him.

The meal cooked slowly by Renjun's reckoning, but time passed quickly. Soon, Jeno was sending him to the table with a plate just for him, and carrying his own plate over after. But Renjun waited for his host to start, and was greeted by more of Jeno's heart-stopping smile. Renjun did have a heart—two, in fact, although a bit different than what human hearts were—and they were stopping. "You'll probably want to go slowly," Jeno warned, and Renjun ducked his head, suddenly shy. Stella had sat down next to them at the table, her chin pointed towards the meat she wanted. Jeno ignored her for now, so Renjun followed his lead.

"It should be cool enough now," Jeno told him, so Renjun took his first bite.

Nothing could have prepared him for what he encountered.

There was so much flavor. The cooking wine and soy sauce burst over his tongue, the ginger and other spices made it sting. The pork was chewy, but not dry at all, and Renjun loved it. And the rice—it was not bland. It tasted clean, and it had a delicate flavor of its own; Renjun did not know how he had lived without it. If it had smelled fantastic while cooking, it tasted even better when it was done.

Renjun knew that he wanted to experience more like what he just had, and Jeno could see the joy in his eyes.

  
  


They took the third dinner to Donghyuck long before it grew cold, and poured him a glass of water as well. Neither knew whether the demon needed water to exist, but decided that it could not hurt to offer it to him. Jeno would never leave one of his horses without water, and he wanted to treat Donghyuck just as well as he did his ranching partners. Perhaps Jeno was a chronic optimist, always seeing potential in everyone, but it helped him get through his days.

The demon was not asleep when they entered the barn, even though his eyes were closed and the strong lines of his face were smoothed. Jeno thought that he was too young to look as angry and stressed as he had during their first meeting, and he wondered what Donghyuck had been through. More than Jeno possibly knew, he was sure.

Donghyuck was dreaming of space. He could picture it clearly in his mind's eye, and to him it was not the black darkness of endless cold that others saw. He was a demon, and that meant that space was the birthing place, the place of the largest of the flames. It created fire and chaos, life and death, and all the other strange and wonderful things that existed, from points so small they became singularities to the most massive of the galaxies. For that is what demons were—if you looked up at the sky, for each galaxy you saw, you could find a matching group of demons who belonged to it. Firey souls for fiery souls. Some burned out faster than others, but all carried the eternal flame.

All carried the eternal flame. Donghyuck opened his eyes, and it burned in the blackness of his pupils. It was not a place of darkness or of null; it was a place of birthing. "I see that you have kept your word," Donghyuck said, and he did not bother to hide the note of surprise in his voice, although it was still rather venomous. "Because of that, I will make no move towards either of you _or_ your lovely property while you set it down inside the pentagram you have ensnared and chained me in."

Jeno crouched down and set the plate and water glass down inside the marking. "Will you need utensils? I will not be offended either way."

The demon was truly stunned by the question. Donghyuck knew how to use utensils, as they were required for the formal events undercover demons attended. The most boring dinner parties were given to the demons who had offended their superiors the most. "The wildfire will consume all," Donghyuck decided to answer, and Jeno nodded. "Thank yourself that you chose to feed me. Perhaps fewer of your livestock will go missing next time."

That seemed to hit some sort of switch inside Jeno. Whereas he had seemed warm and protective to Renjun, now he seemed predatory. And the alien found himself worried for the Celestial, almost against his own will and without any warning. "Threaten one of my horses again," Jeno growled, although he was careful to not step foot into the circle and smudge it, "and I will find a way to banish your sorry ass for all eternity. You will not return to Hell. You will be nothing, and you will be alone, and you will be without everything or anything you have ever loved. Am I being clear?"

The demon swallowed. He was down on his luck, so very far down, and doubted that he would ever be able to claw his way up again, but he'd be damned if he let a _human_ kill him. _A farmer, and his captor, nonetheless!_ "Crystal," said Donghyuck.

"Good. Breakfast will be at eight, and lunch will be whenever I get around to it, but you will get three meals a day. Just because I have not figured out how to send you on your way safely does not mean that you are my prisoner." Jeno turned and walked out the door, and Renjun trailed after him.

There was something about the demon that seemed familiar to Renjun. It was not as if they had met in the past, just that he seemed similar to fleet members, to the Scouts Renjun had known, in his alienness. For that was what demons were; before they were known to humans and regarded as the evil part of their Christian religion, demons were extraterrestrials just like Renjun's Radem, and it was a past that many extraterrestrial races were hard-pressed to forget. The war between the Celestials had shattered galaxies, and no matter what either of them said, both sides had an equal amount of blood on their hands, and each was equally guilty. But not every member of those races was guilty.

Donghyuck, for instance, was a younger demon. He was about halfway through his life, and he burned quickly for a demon, but that meant he still had a few good billions left in him. He was a demon who could stare straight at the Sun because he was the Sun, and every time he did, he could feel their connection. Its heat upon his skin, its core burning inside him, its radiation spewing out and bathing the world around him in light.

Contrary to popular belief, demons were not purely evil. They may not have been good, but they were tied to our very source of life. Life as we know it depends upon a variety of conditions, all of which need to be perfect, but one of the central ones is a star, and a planet within its habitable zone.

Life as we know it on Earth belonged to the eternal flame shared by the Sun and one demon, and his name was Full Sun, Haechan, Lee Donghyuck, the lightbringer. Jeno was holding the very Sun in the palm of his hand, yet he did not know it.

Perhaps if he had known, he would have invited Donghyuck inside. As it was, Donghyuck was still glowing with surprise and flattery since he had never been _fed_ before, and was used to scrounging up meals from wherever he could. But maybe there was another choice, he realized, now that he had lost his position amongst the demons, and he considered it as the night drew on and on and the moon painted the tips of the trees silver-white.

The moon was just barely visible over one of the mountains from Jeno's bedroom, too, so he showed Renjun to the window and pointed. "It's a waning crescent," he said, and Renjun nodded.

"I am ready to sleep on your couch," Renjun announced, after they had watched it for a while. It moved slowly enough that they could not see it orbit with the naked eye, but something about knowing that it was still there calmed their unsteady hearts.

"Wait." Jeno caught Renjun by tightening his fingers because, as always, they were intertwined. "You can stay, if you would like. There's a bit more than holding hands, too, if you would like that. If not, though, that's fine, please don't feel like you need to!"

"Is that... what humans call fucking?"

The shock was clear on Jeno's face, clearer than the noonday sun. "No! I meant cuddling."

Jeno may have been shocked, but Renjun was confused. "And how is that different than fucking?"

Jeno did not react poorly, and Renjun was relieved that his question was not immediately shot down. He was curious, truly, and Jeno looked like he had some answers. "Well, cuddling is more of a thing you do with friends. It can be platonic, and it's usually more about comfort than anything else. Fucking, or what we'll sometimes refer to as sex, is usually about physical pleasure."

"Oh." Renjun crinkled his nose. "Well, then, can we cuddle?"

Renjun was relieved, and it was clear that Jeno was relieved, too. "Of course! Not all people like cuddling or 'skinship,' but I do." The human did not know whether Renjun needed to brush his teeth or shower or wash his face, so he just showed Renjun how he brushed his teeth and washed his face and left it at that. "Alright, let's get under the covers. They will keep us warm throughout the night, much like fur on a dog or hair on a horse."

Jeno shimmied his way under the covers and fluffed up his pillows, and Renjun copied him. Jeno had noticed that the other was clearly eager to learn, and tended to learn by following his lead, but he could not deny that the sight of Renjun so close to him, breathing the same air, smelling the slightest bit of copper, was giving him more nerve than he usually had.

Their noses were close enough to brush, although it was barely a tickle. The puff of Renjun's breathing was much more distracting, and Jeno had no idea whether he actually needed to breathe in Earth’s atmosphere, or if he was just once again learning from Jeno. "Alright, do you want to keep holding hands?"

It was somewhat muffled by Jeno's pillow, but the basic idea got across. Renjun, however, knew what he wanted, so he rolled over until his back was pressed against Jeno's side. "D... Do you want me to spoon you?" It came out with a bit more of a squeak than Jeno was hoping for, but that had been the last thing he had expected.

"Yes, please," Renjun grumbled, and Jeno realized that he was going to be asleep much sooner than Jeno had expected. Jeno rolled over so he could curl up behind Renjun, and he felt the tension drain from the extraterrestrial. He could not see any features, as per usual, but he could feel legs and a back, so Jeno tried not to think about anything more. He distracted himself by thinking about the best way to repair his cow pasture. The cows were a total loss, he knew, which filled him with remorse and despair—he had loved them very much, every last one of them, and he had been planning to sell the calves the next spring. Now all his money, hard work, and time were gone, as well as the lives of his innocent, well-meaning creatures. Jeno inhaled the copper smell of Renjun and made himself drift off before he became much sadder, knowing that he would rise early to feed his animals and maybe even look at the pasture before making breakfast for Renjun. He was almost positive that Renjun had never had breakfast in bed, and that was something that was a very necessary experience in Jeno's book, so he would provide. Jeno was thinking pancakes, blueberries, and bacon, and maybe a sausage and some fresh orange juice. _That wouldn't be too much, would it?_ No, Jeno decided, it wouldn't be too much since they could give the rest to the demon in the barn.

With that, Jeno fell asleep, and had a series of overly sweet, copper-scented dreams.

  
  


It was before dawn when Jeno rose. It still seemed to come as a habit, the timing, and he found himself only slightly bleary-eyed and wanting to go check on his animals and the creature in the barn, then come back to bed and cuddle Renjun some more. The urge to dote on Renjun struck Jeno as a touch unusual for him, but he was not complaining. Despite the other's inhuman nature, they got along well, and Jeno would have been lying if he said that he disliked Renjun's personality. They were well-matched, and Jeno found himself wishing that perhaps in the future, they could do more than cuddle. Explore more, per se, start showing Renjun some more of what the world had to offer, but he was also not sure if the alien would be able to handle it with so little practical knowledge.

Jeno heaved himself through his morning rounds. He tossed flakes to each of his horses and did a quick check over each for injuries, then began making a schedule for taking them out and working them in turn, building them back up to full strength. He'd start after he cooked for Renjun and Donghyuck, and once again he found that his mind was stuck on Renjun, Renjun, Renjun. He thought that it was fascinating that he could feel Renjun's features when he couldn't see them, so he guessed that perhaps it was because the nature of them was invisible to the eye; a black so dark it reflected no light for his eye to process, a surface of an albedo of absolute zero.

Jeno went back to the farmhouse with light steps. He kept quiet and hushed Stella when she scrambled across the wooden flooring to greet him, afraid of waking Renjun too early. He was going with his first idea of pancakes and bacon, but decided to make some with chocolate chips and some with blueberries, because he managed to have some in the pantry. Jeno was familiar with the recipe, had enjoyed making it before the Abduction (as he had come to think of the event), and soon they were cooking golden on the griddle. He was careful when he poured the orange juice, and he made sure to check the date before he carried it along with the pancakes and some tender breakfast meats into his bedroom.

Renjun was still asleep in Jeno's bed, and he looked peaceful. The aurora of radiation bleeding off him seemed dimmer, softer, and Jeno wanted to run a hand along it. He did not, deciding that was probably quite intrusive, but he entertained the thought for as long as it took for him to sit down on his side of the bed and rest the plates and tray of food atop his thighs.

The alien stirred when Jeno's weight shifted the bed, and his golden eyes blinked open. Renjun only took a moment to see who it was before breaking into a smile, one much brighter than even the first rays of dawn when they had broken through the lingering remnants of the night and spilled into their bedroom. "Good morning," cooed Jeno, and he watched in delight as Renjun rolled over and cracked his back.

"That smells fantastic," Renjun noted, and Jeno grinned.

"Thanks! Are you ready for breakfast?"

Renjun froze, but it did not seem to be in fear. His eyes were huge, and it was truly adorable to Jeno. "That's for me?"

"That's for us to split, but mostly for you." If Jeno had known how delighted the mere idea of food made Renjun, he would have cooked much earlier. Such a happy look for such a basic thing in Jeno's eyes, and something that Jeno could provide and encourage. Jeno was disappointed that there weren't more than two restaurants in his dusty old town, because he would have loved to see how Renjun's eyes lit up at the varying courses. He wanted to show the other the differences between sweet and sourdough bread, all the lovely desserts he could, chicken that wasn't terribly dry and flavorless, and everything else that Jeno took for granted. His mother’s recipes, unchanged since they had come with the family from Korea. "Here." Jeno cut a piece of pancake and dipped it into the syrup, and handed the fork to Renjun.

At first, there was nothing. Then Renjun's entire being lit up, and he could not keep a little surprised noise in. It was unlike anything he had tasted before, and he did not even know what to _call_ the flavor he was tasting. "Sweet, isn't it? Is it good?"

Renjun finished chewing and chased stray bits of syrup from his lips with a shockingly visible tongue. It was pale pink, much paler than Jeno's own, and rather close to lilac in tint. "So good," he groaned, and Jeno felt himself flush. Thankfully, it seemed that Renjun was distracted by the food and was not looking at Jeno, and Jeno regained his composure and poker face quickly.

"Then take the plate," he urged, and passed the tray over to Renjun. The alien sliced off more pancake to try, and Jeno pointed at the stack. "The one you just had had blueberry fruit in it. The one underneath has chocolate chips in it. But the base material is the same."

Renjun tried as much as he could. The bacon and sausage were more familiar to him than the pancakes because they were not too far estranged from the packs he used to eat for meals, but he did enjoy the bacon the most. It was salty, so salty, and that had been a precious commodity to the fleet. Salt was expensive, incredibly so, and he could not even comprehend how much a single slice of bacon would have sold for.

But now Renjun was no longer a part of the fleet, he was in control of his own destiny, and Jeno was helping him discover what he wanted to do with his newfound freedom. Renjun could not remember ever hearing of a Radem before who had enjoyed so much freedom, even after leaving the fleet. What Renjun would do without direction, he did not know, but he was excited to see the sun rise over the surface of the Earth every morning and taste all that he could try.

Despite the newfound love Renjun had for his pancakes, he ensured that Jeno got enough as well. He cut them for the human and drenched them in syrup like he had seen demonstrated, and extended the fork to Jeno. Jeno was careful when he removed the pieces from the fork's tines, and Renjun found himself surprised by how lovely the image was.

Soon, their breakfast was finished, and Renjun found himself staring at an empty plate. "I should go take food to our demonic acquaintance," Jeno sighed, and Renjun nodded. "You can stay in bed for a bit longer, if you would like."

That sounded like a lovely idea to Renjun, so he let himself tumble back onto the fluffy pillows and his eyes slip shut. "I would like to. Good luck with the demon," he said, and Jeno gave him a fond smile.

"Alright, sleep well."

Jeno forced himself out the door before he said anything more. It would be bad if he added anything like _darlin’_ or _sweetheart_ or _angel_ or _dear_ to the end, and he knew that the best way to avoid that was by keeping himself busy. He cooked pancakes for Donghyuck on the griddle and carried them out with one of the reheated sausages, and hoped that the demon would enjoy them. Not that he expected that he and the demon would become friends, but more that he wanted the demon to be treated right while in his care and company.

It wasn't unlike how he might feel about a new horse, Jeno realized. "I do not know what to do with you," he murmured to himself, testing the sentence out before trying to present it to the demon. But it didn't sound right at all, so Jeno sighed and went back to thinking.

Eventually, he decided to just check on the demon and offer his him his breakfast. As he pushed open the door to the otherwise empty barn, he was struck by how…. ordinary it looked. If he didn't know better, Jeno would have thought that there was nothing wrong or unusual with this barn, but there was the demon sitting before him. Donghyuck still looked human, charmingly boyish in fact, and did not seem to have gained horns or slitted eyes or cloven hooves over the night, and a part of Jeno was relieved by this, while a part of him was disturbed. There was something so unnerving about a creature who looked exactly _human._ It made them harder to hate, even though this was the demon who had eaten his entire herd of cattle and therefore most of his cattle-driven income for the year. Thankfully, his crops had been growing well, but they simply did not bring in as much cash per pound as his cows.

Donghyuck's eyes were open. They were dark brown, not black, and that made him look human. In fact, the harder Jeno looked, the less demonic the boy looked. _The boy?_ Jeno had not purposefully started thinking of Donghyuck as a boy, and it was strange, especially given the damage said demon had done to Jeno. But, now that Jeno thought about it again for the second time in as many minutes, he realized that he _had_ done wrong. He had been abducted by Renjun, and had therefore accidentally left Donghyuck trapped in the pentagram for a long time.

_Could a demon starve?_ Jeno wondered where he was going with that thought, but when he saw Donghyuck's eyes light up, he realized that he had said that out loud. Or no, he had not said that out loud, but he had stepped foot into the pentagram, and therefore Donghyuck must have been hearing his thoughts. "Here is your breakfast," he said, and carefully set the plate down. Even though he was inside the pentagram and Donghyuck had not stepped towards him, Jeno could not help but feel slightly like both a bunny rabbit and a mountain lion himself at once.

Jeno sat down on the dusty barn floor as Donghyuck started on his breakfast. He hadn't given the demon utensils in case he decided to throw a knife or something, but then again Jeno decided that if Donghyuck had _really_ wanted to, he could have turned a pancake into a sword. Or a rifle. But Donghyuck did not seem to want him dead, and Jeno was glad for that. He had enough on his metaphorical plate with Renjun learning about human life for the first time to worry about being killed by the demon he was holding in his unused barn.

It was quiet in the barn then. Some of the morning light was coming in through the open doors, and a little bit from the overhead windows, but most of the barn was chiaroscuro, a study in highlight and shadow. Jeno was in the shadow; Donghyuck was in the light. "May I ask a question?"

"That is a question, Jeno," Donghyuck snorted, and Jeno huffed but held eye-contact. "But sure, shoot away."

"What did you mean when you said that 'they abandoned you because of what I did to you'? Or something like that?"

Donghyuck closed his eyes. It was not a blink, it was slower than that, and it seemed to carry sorrow along with it, enough sorrow to flood Jeno's bones to overflowing. "I was abandoned by the demon Lords," Donghyuck said. "I missed quarterly review, so now there is not a place for me in the ranks of demons."

Jeno sat for a while and mulled over the words. Then, "Well, that's a stupid system. If you're talented and good at your job, they should give you another chance. You _are_ good at your job, right?"

"I was good at my job," said Donghyuck, and he was right. He had been good at his job. He had been stationed on Earth for quite a while, had enjoyed trying the cuisines and traveling the roads, searching for truck drivers who would stop to pick up a pretty boy hitchhiking on the side of the road. It was good work, Donghyuck knew, because he was efficient and limited the mess. He was not like some of the other demons he knew who relished in sin, who would glut themselves on it until sloth overtook them and they either became bureaucrats or slowly faded out of existence. No, Donghyuck appreciated the beauty of sin, but he did not go out of his way to generate more of it. Humanity did enough of it to fulfill a demon for a lifetime, Donghyuck thought, let alone any of the countless other races demons worked with.

Donghyuck had seen plenty of other races, too, over his lifetime. He was slowly getting closer to middle-aged, but he had retained his youthful looks, and well over a thousand races had seen him as he now appeared.

But there in the empty barn, staring at the dust mites drifting down in the sunlight, Donghyuck could not help but wish his body was more expressive. More beautiful. Worthy of the human seated before him, staring straight into his soul with eyes as kind as they were free.

There were many things that Donghyuck the boy, Haechan the Full Sun demon, was insecure about, but there was only one thing he was scared of. It had something to do with a dark pair of eyes, stormy grey hair, a smile like the thinnest wire. It could barely be seen, but it would still slice just as deep. It had something to do with _it,_ and _it_ which moved in the darkness, between this night and the next, for there is always more than one night simultaneously once the Sun has set upon a certain hemisphere. But _it_ was present in all the nights, a nightmare of sorts, but that was not all that _it_ was. _It_ collected souls, lost souls, with the sound of _its_ haunting voice and the eerie chords of _its_ instrument of choice. _It_ did not carry an instrument of torture, and in that _it_ was different from most other demons.

_It_ was the one thing that Donghyuck feared.

But he was quickly gaining another one, the longer he watched Jeno watching him in the dusty barn, and it was somewhat simpler than a Lord of Hell. It was this, and only this: that Jeno might send him away.

In fact, Donghyuck believed that Jeno would be right in sending him away. The demon was nothing but trouble, and he carried mischief wherever he went. Most of the chaos he brought was unintentional, but that meant that he was fulfilling his job, and the quarterly reports had always gone well. Until the one he had missed, of course, which had lead to his fear finding him in a corn field pentagram which may or may not have been a fake crop circle in the dead of night. Not Donghyuck's finest moment, just as it hadn’t been Jeno’s.

Donghyuck's mind was not a friendly being, and it kept showing him visions of the storm in Jihoon's eyes, the true disappointment and bitterness that had been there. Donghyuck was terrified of him, completely and utterly terrified, but he had not wanted for things to have gone like that. He wished for nothing more than to rewind time to make it back for the quarterly review, but knew that the past Jihoon would be able to sense his use of demonic energy and therefore call him out on it, and Donghyuck would be cast out again. Or no, not cast out—burned out. His star would be burned far too quickly and far too hot, and his powers would spike and be consumed as his respective star spiked and consumed itself.

_Maybe he would have supernovaed,_ Donghyuck dreamed for a moment, but then he remembered what he had read from a human source. They liked to study his Sun, Donghyuck had realized over the years, and if the humans were right, then he would expand and consume the Solar System, but not supernova. He was not even given that last rite: the luxury of having a legacy _._

No, legacies were usually reserved for the Lords of Hell with the greatest stars. There were two of them that Donghyuck thought of rather often, a binary star system of immense size. Usually in a binary star system, one star would be larger than the other, but in this case, both were Lords of Hell. One, Donghyuck was terrified of, but the other Donghyuck knew of only from legend. It was said that this Soonyoung laughed often and laughed merrily, and carried no instrument of torture. Perhaps he and Jihoon were brothers, or perhaps he and Jihoon were lovers, but whether they had come from the same source or whether they had been tossed together by colliding galaxies, no one knew. But everyone knew _of_ them, Lords of Hell Jihoon and Soonyoung, who cradled the Earth between their Celestial palms.

Jeno stretched out his leg, and his boot scraped across the floor of the barn. It was enough of a sound to make Donghyuck come back to himself, back to the present, away from the night upon night upon night. The human was watching him still, but he wore a smile, and Donghyuck was hesitant to call it fond, but that's exactly what it looked like. "Thank you for the breakfast," he said, because demons _did_ have manners, even if they were agents of entropy. Sinning was a manner of increasing the entropy of the universe, but it was not the only path for a demon, and manners were highly encouraged amongst the demonic race.

"You are very welcome," replied Jeno, and he sounded slightly surprised, but his smile was still the same. Donghyuck looked away before the other picked up on his inner turmoil, and soon he was hearing heavy steps heading out of the barn and out of the shadow into the sunlight.

With that, Donghyuck was left alone in the dusty barn he had begun to think of his own. It would be long and boredom-filled until Jeno returned with lunch or dinner, Donghyuck was not sure which he would be given, but he could still feel the melody rising up in him. It is the melody of all melodies, which is one melody and is the same melody and is a melody that we all know. And if we cannot sing it from memory, it's there in an unused crate of our mind, or otherwise written into the very marrow of our bones. It is a song of creation, and sometimes it may be heard in the physical planes. In a gasp, in a whistle of wind over the lip of a glass bottle, in a requiem.

  
  


Jeno returned to Renjun before starting on his paddock repair or his next horse exercise and check. There was something irresistible about the farmhouse now, something which had never been there before. In the past, Jeno had been perfectly content to sleep out on the range with a horse or Stella to warn him of cougars, or in the loft of the barn if he had been working there late, or even—one particularly memorable time—inside the driver's seat of one of his tractors, thankfully no longer running.

It did not take long before Jeno realized something seemed off. Renjun was quiet, even more so than usual. "Everything alright?" he asked, not sure if he was going to get an answer but determined to offer.

"Can you show me how to kiss?" It was quiet, but it was also entirely serious, and Jeno’s shock quickly turned to wonder—wonder that Renjun was asking for that.

“Are you sure?” Jeno asked, just to be sure himself, and the familiar void-shape on his bed nodded.

“Very,” said Renjun. “I’ve heard it’s nice from the other Scouts when we were in training, but nobody ever wanted to do it with me. Do you want to?”

Yes, Jeno wanted to. He was struck by exactly how much he wanted to, having spent so long resolutely _not_ thinking about it. “Yes.” So when Renjun patted the bedding next to him, Jeno curled right up there. He absently noted that he could hear Stella’s nails in the other room, but his attention was on how warm Renjun was. He wasn’t sure whether that was because the bed was warm, or whether it was due to Renjun’s natural body heat, but he didn’t particularly care.

Renjun blinked, and Jeno recognized a bit of nervousness in his energy. “I’ll go slow,” Jeno said, and he couldn’t help but feel like Renjun was smiling. “Just tell me what you want to do if you don’t like it. I won’t be upset.”

There was something special about Jeno and Renjun’s first kiss, and it was this: Jeno did not remember it. Yes, he knew that they had kissed because they broke apart, but he did not _remember_ it. Renjun was looking at him with eyes of shining gold, and Jeno could feel something shaking inside him. There was something vibrating within his skin, something with a very high frequency and a wavelength so small he could barely feel it, but feel it he could, and it felt eerily familiar. It was such an alien feeling, and Jeno wondered where it was from.

Renjun tentatively tangled fingers studded with gem-like stars in Jeno’s hair, and Jeno wondered if perhaps he was dying. Because that was the feeling of the Veil, he remembered now, and when Jeno began to tease something more than shallow, chaste kisses, he could feel it vibrating stronger through him. Perhaps the Veil was created by the Radem themselves, and Jeno was bathing in Renjun’s radiation. If the radiation was killing him, then Jeno would certainly die happily.

Despite everything inhuman about Renjun in that moment, the sudden whine he made the first time Jeno deepened the kiss was distinctly familiar. A human sound, and Jeno found his grip tightening on Renjun’s shoulders.

The Radem was a quick study, and it was not long before Jeno found his own tricks being played back by Renjun. Not that he minded at all.

Jeno and Renjun learned together, and outside the room, past the kitchen where Stella Blue lay on the cool tile flooring, a voice of the eternal flame grew in a requiem.

❂ ❂ ❂

Jeno knew where everything was in his kitchen, but he lost his way several times. He found himself staring at spices, or rice, or even flour rather than the chocolate he was looking for. There were only a few things that Jeno hoarded, but the special drinking chocolate he was going to make was one of them. It came from his parents every other shipment, so he was always careful not to run out in between. Eventually, he pulled his mind together enough to spoon five spoonfuls of the powder into the mugs full of milk and set the mixture over a burner, and forced himself to watch it as it heated. He stirred consistently, worried that if he did not, his mind would wander and he would scorch the milk.

He wanted the best for Renjun, and the thought of the extraterrestrial sprawled on his bed made him smile. Jeno wondered what Renjun would think of other activities, but stopped himself before he thought for too long. _Hot chocolate. Don’t burn it._

He still could not remember their first kiss. He could remember the following ones, however, kisses which started rather soft and chaste and ended with Renjun decidedly out-kissing Jeno. The other was a fast learner, and Jeno had the feeling he’d be experiencing the repercussions of that for the foreseeable future. Jeno’s lips still tingled even then, in a similar way to the way the Veil had made his whole body tingle. That made Jeno wonder what would happen if he was experienced to Renjun’s touch elsewhere, and he almost lost himself in it until he smelled the chocolate again. _At the very least, his hand had kept methodically stirring._

Jeno dipped a spoon in the drink and blew a bit on it, before giving it a small taste. It was just right, warm but not hot enough to burn Renjun’s palette. He wanted Renjun to enjoy this, after all, and he was pretty sure that Renjun was going to. So he turned off the burners and poured the hot chocolate into the mugs, pale blue and gold, and carried them into the bedroom. He’d do the dishes later, maybe when Renjun was asleep.

The alien seemed to have sensed his return, because he was facing the door and looking rather expectant. Well, as expectant as a creature of the void could look, but Jeno thought that he looked pretty damn expectant. “This is hot chocolate,” Jeno said, and Renjun beamed at him (from his eyes).

“It smells like the pancakes,” Renjun noticed, and Jeno grinned.

“Yeah. It’s sweet, and it has chocolate in it just like some of the pancakes did.” Jeno watched over the top of his own mug as Renjun took his first sip, and was pleased that he had not heated the milk too much.

Whatever Jeno had been expecting, it was not the most indulgent moan he had heard from Renjun so far. “That’s… what’s the word you use for ‘so good?’”

Jeno swallowed hard and took a sip from his own warm mug. “Amazing?”

“It’s amazing,” said Renjun, seemingly pleased with both the drink and the new word he could now use. “Thank you, Jeno.”

That made the human stop thinking for a moment. He hadn’t been expecting to be thanked, so he was rather caught off guard. “You’re welcome, Renjun,” he said, and the alien nodded at him. It was quiet after that, and Jeno’s thoughts gradually resumed.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Jeno’s eyes widened once again in surprise, and he saw that Renjun was wearing a distinctly smug look in his eyes. Renjun really _was_ almost too clever for his own good.

“Just thinking about how I like showing you things humans do, even without thanks.”

Although Jeno could not see it, Renjun was frowning with his absolute-dark lips. “But you’re doing me a favor, so I owe you thanks.”

Although Jeno could not see it, he could tell that Renjun was somewhat troubled. “Your company is more than enough compensation for something I enjoy.” He sighed then, and Renjun reached out to brush a bit of Jeno’s hair back from his eyes. “It’d been rather lonely, out here all alone.”

That Renjun could see, even without any more words being said. He could read it in the faint sadness in Jeno’s eyes. He knew that Jeno would not cry, but he could see a shine to them which made him more than a bit concerned. His human was concerned for him, and he was concerned for his human. “I’m here with you now,” he said, and Jeno slowly nodded.

“Yes, and I’m here for you.” Then, Jeno gasped, breath shocked from his chest. “Damn it, I forgot about Johnny.”

Renjun suddenly wished his golden eyes were useful for more than just observing; if only they were good enough to see where his human’s friend had been taken. “Do you want me to go with you to ask our demon?”

Jeno looked at him for a moment, really looked, and in that moment Renjun felt that he had never seen the human look so, well, _human._ It was both small and powerful. The spell was broken when Jeno nodded, and Renjun took another sip from his drink. “Do we have time to finish this?”

“Yes, we definitely do,” Jeno assured. “I already asked whether Johnny was in any danger, and Donghyuck said that he was not.”

The Radem had honestly forgotten, but now it came back to him. “And a demon always speaks true, although it might not be the whole truth.”

“Right,” said Jeno, and after a moment, “thank you.”

They drank their hot chocolates in companionable silence. Or perhaps it was a bit more than a companionable silence, because Jeno had the hint of a bruise threatening to bloom on one of his collarbones.

❂ ❂ ❂

“Donghyuck, we’re coming in!” Renjun stared at Jeno when he shouted outside of the barn where the demon was being held, but the cowboy only shrugged. “Figured he should have a right to his privacy, right?”

Jeno’s companion was not quite sure how to answer that, so he did not say anything. Perhaps his eyes were telling enough. There was no answer from inside, but when Jeno stepped through the doorway, he could see a rather smug-looking demon and a cleaned plate.

“Did you enjoy breakfast?” Jeno asked, and once again Renjun gawked at him. Or, as well as Renjun could gawk when only his eyes were visible to the human.

Donghyuck was sitting on the ground, one leg folded and the other extended out to the front. “It was delicious,” he admitted, and Jeno grinned. “I assume you have come here for something other than culinary critique?”

Jeno paused where he was lifting the plate from the ground just outside the pentagram. “Yes,” he began, but before he could ask anything, Donghyuck was speaking.

“You brought your Radem friend this time.” Donghyuck knew more than he was telling, but demons always did.

It was still inside the nearly-abandoned hay barn. The sun was higher in the sky, close to its apex, so most of the floor was bathed in light. Donghyuck and Jeno were both lit by the windows, and Renjun was as well, but it was hard to tell when he had an albedo of zero. Jeno sat for a moment and gathered his courage, and as he was doing so, Renjun took his hand. It was a casual affair, a quiet affair, and Donghyuck noticed and Donghyuck wanted.

He was so very lonely, after all.

“Where’s Johnny?”

The demon smiled. It did not look menacing, nor particularly calculating, and that immediately made Renjun suspicious. He knew that not all demons enjoyed spreading evil, but that all celebrated entropy due to their religion, and he was positive that this Donghyuck was exactly the same in this particular regard.

“I needed to eat,” Donghyuck said. His voice did not sound too unlike the sunlight coming in from the window looked, actually. “And when he encountered me, he could neither kill me nor free me. I asked in that order. So I used what power I had to move him to what he really wanted, what his greatest desire was, so that he was safely out of my way and out of my mind.”

Jeno sat and mulled over the words. He wanted to be aggressive, to ask what gave Donghyuck the right to do that to his friend, but he did not. “Is Johnny dead? If not, please tell me exactly where he is, and guarantee me his safety. And then I will release you from the pentagram.”

Renjun whipped his head around to stare at Jeno. _Surely the human had lost his mind!_ But Donghyuck was smiling, and this time it was a bit proud.

“I can do better than tell you,” announced Donghyuck, “I can show you where Johnny is at this very moment and exactly what he is doing, without moving us from this barn. It will not harm any of the three of us, although it will drain some of my energy.”

This was something Renjun had heard of. Demons could give dreams, and although they usually did this when the individual was asleep, they could also give waking dreams. So he told Jeno as much. “He’s telling the truth. Demons can bestow waking dreams upon others.”

Jeno’s nose crinkled. He was clearly thinking it over, that much Renjun could see. “Let’s do it,” he said, and then the demon snapped his fingers.

They awoke on a beach. It was all pale sand and a teal expanse of ocean and there, right where the two met, was Johnny. Jeno looked down at himself and saw that his body was invisible, and was not particularly surprised by the observation. He could not see Renjun or Donghyuck, but that was fine by him. “Hey, Johnny!”

Someone was trotting over to where Johnny was splashing in the seafoam. “Mojito?” The man extended the drink to Johnny, who took it with a grin and a cheers.

“Thanks, Jinho!” Jeno watched Johnny and Jinho there on the beach, right in the liminal area between land and sea, and he realized that Johnny looked truly happy. Carefree in a way Jeno had never seen the older man, without the worries of managing crops and animals passing and making an income.

Jinho closed a hand around Johnny’s free wrist. “Come on, the others are inside! I heard Shinwon has been asking for cuddles all afternoon.”

“Cuddles?” Johnny gasped, and Jinho nodded.

They ran off through the sand together, back towards a small building Jeno assumed was where they were staying. He himself stayed for long enough to see them disappear inside, and then he found himself returned to his own body.

Jeno opened his eyes and felt two other pairs of eyes watching him. It was Renjun, of course, but also Donghyuck, and Jeno believed he understood the latter better now. “Does he remember?”

The sunlight had noticeably changed position since Jeno and Renjun had left to where they had been and been returned to their place in the world. He wondered how long it took for Donghyuck to put them in and bring them back out again, and suspected that it was a good while. That far of a look could not have been easy.

Donghyuck shook his head, and his bi-colored hair flopped with the movement. “No, he does not remember what he is supposed to be doing, but if you wish for him to, I can change that.”

The human and the demon stared at each other for a long time. Jeno knew that Donghyuck was doing anything he possibly could to free himself from the pentagram, but he was not sure what the demon would do once he was freed. He had promised, however, and Donghyuck had been right that Johnny was not in any pain or danger.

In fact, Johnny seemed to be doing the best Jeno had ever seen. It made Jeno’s decision very clear. “I think he should stay there,” he said, “as long as it will not cause him any pain in the future.”

One of the barn cats yowled in the depths of the barn. “I can make sure there are no long-lasting negative consequences,” agreed Donghyuck, and Jeno nodded.

“Alright,” Jeno said, and then he spoke the words to set Donghyuck free.

Renjun immediately went tense. His people and this particular branch of the Celestials were not on poor terms, but he did not want to deal with a mid-branch star, and especially not one so close to Jeno. He stepped forward so that he was in between Jeno and the pentagram.

Donghyuck, Haechan, rose to his feet and stepped out of the pentagram. He kept walking until he was stepping over the threshold of the barn and out into the full sun.

  
  


Jeno and Renjun watched him walk, then followed after. Jeno could feel Renjun’s tension, and wished he could drain it. “You kept me in the pentagram for long enough that I will need to rest and recharge my powers.” Donghyuck did not seem angry and he sounded almost tame, but his words made Jeno pause.

“I hurt you?” he asked.

The demon blinked. “Yes. Pentagrams are only meant to hold Celestials for a few hours.” His beautiful face twisted, and Renjun prepared to shove Jeno behind him and summon a shield.

But the human—the fragile, strong human—spoke before he could do anything. “I am sorry. I offer my home to you for rest and shelter, on the condition that you do no harm to my farm, family, or friends.”

The sun scorched the space-lightened skin of Jeno’s neck. _Had it always been that hot?_ It looked like it pained Donghyuck to hear, but Jeno was not sorry. He had said what had needed to be said. He had wanted a demon for a companion, and had ended up harming the demon instead. Of course, said demon had broken out of the pentagram and eaten all of Jeno’s cattle, but—as Jeno’s mind helpfully reminded him—Donghyuck had also been starving.

“I accept.” It was said loudly, and Renjun could not help but be impressed. It must have been painful to say, especially for a demon speaking to a human, but Donghyuck did seem to know that out here, all alone, abandoned by demon-kind, he was in mortal danger.

By all means, Donghyuck should have despised Jeno for what he had done, but he did not. He did not, so he seized it with both hands and held on tight.

❂ ❂ ❂

Dinner was a strange affair. Renjun and Donghyuck were staring at each other over the table, but Jeno was not sure exactly what kind of stare they were exchanging. It did not look aggressive, per se, but decidedly weary. Maybe a bit curious, and perhaps a bit more than that. Jeno ate his Mississippi Roast, broccoli, and rice surrounded by a taut kind of silence. Not tense, but stretched.

“I saw Scout ship engine scorches by my pentagram.”

Jeno looked up to see that yes, Donghyuck was still staring at Renjun, but now he was actually addressing the alien in the room. He hadn’t done that before.

Renjun hesitated for a moment, and although Donghyuck looked like he was about to pry, he did not. Jeno thought he had an idea of what Renjun was thinking: _yes, and I made a mistake._ He did not expect Renjun to actually say that.

“I saw Jeno’s pentagram and mistook it for my target.”

The room was so quiet that they could hear the horses shuffling in the barn through the open window. Then Donghyuck burst into laughter, and in it, Renjun thought he could hear the whip of solar wind. (Not that there was any sound in space, he knew, but it still felt like that.) Much to his own surprise, Jeno found himself laughing along, and then he distinctly heard Renjun begin to laugh, and laughed harder. He found himself laughing at the improbability of the entire situation, of the ridiculousness of his and Renjun’s relationship, at the pretty demon sitting across from him at his dining room table.

Eventually, Donghyuck’s rapid laughter slowed, and he began to haul in breaths. He did not need to breathe, really, but it was a skill demon children learned early on to help them blend in with humans. “I would have paid to see that!”

Renjun and Jeno glanced at each other. Each instinctively knew that a demon talking about “payment” was a special thing, because almost always it was the demon asking for payment from someone else. A heart for a heart. A year for a year.

Donghyuck saw them looking at each other, and felt fear in his fiery heart. He did not want to mention what would restore his energy faster, because he did not belong. He did not seem to belong anywhere, now.

Almost as if they could sense his thoughts, when Donghyuck refocused, the human and the Radem were turning their heads to staring at him. It was not unfriendly, and there was something resembling warmth in Jeno’s eyes. That reminded Donghyuck of demon’s eyes. Demons carried the souls of their stars visibly in their eyes, sometimes more than others, and although Donghyuck did not know it, his were shining.

“Donghyuck,” said Renjun, and Donghyuck had never heard the Radem’s voice sound so soft before. “I know a bit about demons, just through my work. Is there a way you would like for us to help?”

The demon was frozen, but his heart was distinctly beating. “Only if you desire to. If not, I will recharge on my own.”

“We do.” They spoke together, and Donghyuck shivered, although it was not cold, and he was always hot. It was dark in that little farm house dining room, but Donghyuck provided more than enough light.

  
  
  


Donghyuck woke with the rising of his sun over the mountains. Renjun and Jeno were still asleep, their limbs tangled in both their dreams and the sheets, and Donghyuck rolled over to watch the sunrise through the window. Eventually he grew bored, so he shifted onto his back. Renjun made a noise at the motion and scooted in towards Donghyuck’s warmth, and the demon was rather surprised by how he did not want to move the clinging body off of him.

He closed his eyes, and behind them bloomed blackness. It was the void, not unlike the void he had clinging to his shirt. Donghyuck’s human form tingled with Renjun’s radiation, but it was a good kind. Donghyuck had always enjoyed radiation, as he was the Sun, gave it out and received it in equal measure. He could feel all the radiation hitting him, both in his flesh and in his solar flares, as he took stock of his Celestial form. It was as much him as the boy he often appeared as, but it had been long since he had been able to feel it so closely. One of the drawbacks to being trapped in a pentagram—not as if there were many benefits to it—was that Donghyuck lost most of his contact with his powers. And to get them back, he had to reconnect with his very being.

He imagined himself walking into the flames, the flames that burned so hot and so clean, purifying flames that washed away his pain. Donghyuck sighed as he basked in the warmth of the sun, and inside the bedroom, it began to cast more tentative light over Jeno. The demon could see this because it was his light, and he could see everywhere his light touched. He slept when the sun was not over the hemisphere he was in, but he did not technically need sleep, just like his star did not need rest.

Donghyuck would burn and burn until he finally burned himself out. He would not supernova.

But he did know others who would, so once he was feeling strong enough, Donghyuck threw his vision out into the abyss and began to search for the brightest stars, and then the biggest stars he could see. He could see the stars of his Lords, and he wondered how Lord Jihoon was. Donghyuck knew that the machine of Demonic nature was carrying on just fine without him, and that his absence was hardly missed, if at all. The thought both saddened and relieved him, and when he drew himself back from watching the binary stars of similar size revolving around each other, tracing beautiful arcs of blazing destruction against the black backdrop of limitless possibility, Donghyuck had the sudden thought that where he was now, being smooshed into the bed by two boys, was not a terrible place to be.

Perhaps what he had needed was company and companionship rather than a career which was steady but going nowhere.

Not that Donghyuck would not return to his work if asked; no, he would be the first one back in line if given a sliver of a chance, but right now, that was not an option for him. So he opened his eyes and pressed a kiss to the top of Jeno’s head, one that would never be mentioned neither now nor in the future, and let himself drift with his Celestial self up in the sky.

That morning, after Jeno (and Donghyuck) had enlightened Renjun to the joys of waffles, Donghyuck helped him load up the truck. They were going to drive with all three of them in the Silverado’s spacious cabin, although Stella was going to stay home to guard the property.

It had taken Donghyuck some time to convince Jeno that him helping load goods into the truck bed would not drain his precious energy, but once that was done, Donghyuck finally felt like he was being useful. It was a feeling he had missed while withering away in the pentagram, although he had never enjoyed receiving orders.

(That was why he had been pleasantly surprised to find that Jeno was more than willing to be ordered around. Perhaps the universe was temporarily on Donghyuck’s side.)

Before Renjun climbed into the passenger’s side of the truck, Donghyuck stopped him with a quiet sentence. “Hey… you know that it’s possible for you to have a human form so that you can walk around in public, right?”

Both Renjun and Jeno gawked at Donghyuck. “You didn’t mention this before?”

Donghyuck shrugged. “Wasn’t particularly necessary. I didn’t want to offend you by suggesting it after you took me in.”

But Renjun gathered Donghyuck into a hug, and the demon found himself blinking disbelieving eyes at a tree while the Radem held him close. Jeno seemed to be able to tell what was going on in his mind, and Donghyuck knew it—he had never had a hug before. “I would love that,” said Renjun, and Donghyuck was not able to avoid his eyes of shining gold.

“Then let’s do it.” Donghyuck cracked his knuckles and stepped back, and Jeno leaned against the side of the Silverado to watch the magic happen. And what a strange magic it was, because when Renjun had stopped glowing like iron heated over a blacksmith’s fire, there was a boy standing in his place. A thoughtfully clothed, handsome boy, thought Jeno, with flaxen chestnut hair and the same golden eyes, although these had normal human pupils and whites rather than being two drops of paint in the void.

“Butter my butt and call me a biscuit!” exclaimed Jeno, and the two stared at him. “What? _Oh,_ it’s just something we say around here.”

Renjun kept staring at him, but Jeno could not look away from his ethereal features; Donghyuck rolled his eyes. “Humans are weird.”

Donghyuck’s powers had worked, and they had worked a bit too well. On the drive to the big town nearby, fifty miles away, he could not stop staring at Renjun. The Radem clearly knew this, because his lip quirked in a way most befitting of a demon.

“Stop that,” Donghyuck whined, and Renjun turned to face him there in the backseat cabin.

“Or what? You’ll kiss me?” 

Jeno rolled his eyes at their fake bickering. He didn’t regret teaching Renjun about human culture for a second, even if the other could be insufferable at times and knew far too much already. But it did provide good entertainment, especially when the radio was tuned to the satellite country channel on full blast and Donghyuck was leaning forward to kiss Renjun like he was trying to take the void from him, or maybe Renjun was trying to take the fire from him. Whatever it was, Jeno found himself feeling very human when surrounded by the extraterrestrials, and discovered that he did not mind the feeling.

The Silverado was very spacious, but with how Renjun and Donghyuck were leaning over the central console, Jeno found Renjun right beside him. Jeno could feel his natural heat pressed all along his side, and it was as comforting as it was exhilarating. It was lucky that Jeno was driving, because otherwise he would have been quite distracted, but this way he could still experience Renjun’s first car ride. “Why don’t you humans drive _everywhere?”_ Renjun shouted over the roar of the wind coming in through the open window and the blasting stereo.

“Sometimes we need to cross water, and sometimes it’s faster to fly!” Jeno shouted back, and Donghyuck worked on making Renjun’s hair messier than it already was from the wind.

“If I were a human, I’d drive everywhere I could, even if it took longer!”

Jeno grinned. “You can, I’ll teach you to drive. But you can’t drive on the road because if the police pull us over and you don’t have a license, we’ll be in trouble.”

Donghyuck laughed then, and Jeno wanted to chase the sound, so he stepped on the gas. If he blew a few stop signs along the empty farm town road, so be it. “A license can always be arranged,” Donghyuck said, and Jeno took one hand off the wheel to hit him.

“Don’t listen to him, Renjun!” Donghyuck rolled his eyes, but Jeno knew that it lacked any real irritation. “Be a law-abiding citizen!”

Renjun beamed at both of them, and Jeno was once again surprised by the sight of his smile. It was a pleasant surprise, that was for sure. He had never realized how many expressions Renjun made until he could see them, and he wondered if he would have had the same realization if Renjun were human; probably not. But Jeno was also positive that he would not have traded Renjun for any human, and noticed that he was starting to feel that way about Donghyuck.

They still did not know each other terribly well, because even though everything had been a touch too fast with Jeno and Renjun, at least they had worked together for a few weeks. But Donghyuck had managed to worm his way into their relationship, whatever it was, after a few days.

_Perhaps it was the demonic charm._ Whatever it was, Jeno did not want to think about it at that moment, so he kept his attention on the road and, occasionally, the two boys pressed into the cabin of his truck. Jeno loved his dusty blue truck, and although it was a bit early to be thinking it, he loved the boys riding in it.

It turned out that Donghyuck was familiar with the music played on Jeno’s country station, and the farmer wondered what the demon had been working on before the whole pentagram incident. He must have been in the area, because Jeno had not been aiming for a specific demon, only one with higher powers and more light in its heart than dark. There was no such thing as pure good and pure evil with demons, just as there was no such thing as pure good and pure evil with any being, but there were some demons with a tendency more towards one than the other.

Jeno did not know it, and Renjun did not know it, but Donghyuck was as light as demons came. He was Full Sun. As it was, the powerful demon of light, of wildfire, of creation and destruction in the void, was wailing alongside Jeno. “When that summer sun fell to his knees, I looked at her and she looked at me—”

Jeno drummed along on the steering wheel. Renjun was a bit confused by what was happening but decided not to comment on it because he did not “know.”

The familiar song was a bit outside of Jeno’s comfortable range, but it was decidedly in Donghyuck’s, and together they made it work. “And I turned on those KC lights and drove all night ‘cause it felt so right, her and I man we feel so right.” Renjun bobbed his head along, not knowing the lyrics or melody, but able to track the rhythm.

“We should do that,” said Renjun, as he listened to what the singers on the radio and in the truck were saying.

Jeno hummed, and it was lost in the rush of air from outside. “Huh?”

“We should go drive all night with those lights on, like in the song,” Renjun explained, and Donghyuck leaned his head forward to rest on Renjun’s shoulder. The Radem was slightly suspicious, but did not move it.

“Want to be risky, do you?”

“No!” Renjun exclaimed, and he gave Donghyuck’s thigh a smack. The demon cackled, and Jeno shook his head. “I want to see the stars.”

That quieted Donghyuck right up, and when Jeno glanced over, he saw that the Celestial was watching the clouds inch across the sky through the front windshield. “Do you miss them?”

It was a seemingly innocuous question, but Jeno knew it carried powerful meaning to the extraterrestrials. Renjun was from the stars, and his fleet was there, and now he was not there. He was not in space, and he was not part of the fleet anymore. (Jeno still didn’t understand Scout traditions, but he also understood that it was not his place as a mere farmer to understand such things.)

Renjun sighed, and Jeno wished he could rub the crease free from between his brows. “Yes,” he said simply, and Donghyuck nodded.

“I did, too, at first. I can show you them, though. Or we can take a ship trip!”

Jeno chuckled at that. It burst out of him, along with his abruptly changing mood. “A ship trip?”

“Yes, it’s a road trip but with a spaceship!” At least it sounded logical, Jeno guessed, but it was also very possible that Donghyuck was making it up for his own amusement. He caught Donghyuck and Renjun exchanging twin smirks, so Jeno decided that was probably closer to the truth, but it brought Donghyuck amusement, and it brought Jeno amusement, and it seemed to bring Renjun amusement, so he didn’t mention it. His job was just to drive, anyways, so he let Renjun and Donghyuck entertain themselves.

“Maybe we’ll do it soon,” agreed Jeno, and Donghyuck cheered. Jeno closed his fingers around the steering wheel and the road stretched on before him, leading to seemingly endless opportunities with his alien copilots beside him.

❂ ❂ ❂

“The cattle will be hauled to my ranch?” Jeno confirmed, and the rancher nodded.

“Yep, trailering is $40 for the herd.”

Jeno’s eyes widened; that was a good deal. “Thank you, sir,” he said, and Jaehyun shook his head.

“No need to thank me, you would have done the same for me if all my cattle had died. You’re a good kid.”

Donghyuck snickered in the back of the feed store, and Jeno wished that he would be a bit quieter. But Jaehyun did not seem to have heard, and actually had more to say. “By the way, Doyoung got some new cutting ponies in.”

Jeno was sure his expression was clear on his face, because Jaehyun laughed. It was at Jeno, but it was affectionate rather than patronizing. “No need to sneak in to watch them, either, and I’m sure Doyoung would be happy to work out a deal with you.”

Jeno could feel his heart galloping in his chest. _Could it be?_ He’d spent so long trying not to think about cutting ponies, because he knew how tricky the horse business was. Horses would get injured, or they wouldn’t sell, and you would lose money fast. But it still filled him with the same child-like wonder it had on the day he and Chenle and Jaemin and Jisung had snuck into the private stable to watch them prep for world finals.

Jaehyun patted his shoulder, and the familiar gesture brought a smile to Jeno’s lips. “Just think on it,” the rancher said. “Doie’ll be happy to hear from you either way.”

Jeno was left grinning beside the tack at the feed store, and he resisted the urge to feel any of the leather. He had his own ponies at home, and he had to focus on getting them back into healthy shape before he could think about any others.

Donghyuck appeared from somewhere in the dog aisle. “Are you going to think about it?” Jeno recognized that tone, and knew that Donghyuck wanted him to give in.

“Haven’t decided yet.”

Warm hands came to hold his own, and Donghyuck peered over his shoulder at the tack. “Just think about it,” he said, eerily similar to how Jaehyun had left. “The horsepower… the power of the pony to drop its weight back and pivot to follow the cow,” Donghyuck began, tracing Jeno’s wrists with soft fingers, and Jeno elbowed him hard in the side.

“Don’t tempt me,” he said. “I need my money to repair the cattle situation you caused, first.”

It seemed that the words struck a chord with Donghyuck, because he suddenly drew back. “I can help with that,” Donghyuck said, and Jeno gave him an appraising look. “No, really. When I have my Celestial powers back, I’ll help you repair your farm. I’ll give the cows the best paddock a cow has ever seen, and help them grow fat and happy and healthy.”

Jeno raised an eyebrow, and Donghyuck whined. “I swear on my word! If you get cutting show horses, too, I promise they’ll be some of the best.”

Jeno hadn’t been asking for that, but he was not about to complain. He had wanted a companion when he had made the pentagram, and now he had two, and it seemed that one of them was strong enough to provide him with cutting horses. He did want to support Doyoung, though, so he figured that if he ever got a horse to show in cutting classes, it would be from him.

Renjun appeared with a plush dog toy for Stella, but he seemed rather engaged in squeezing it with no small amount of sadistic glee to make the squeaker inside scream. 

They walked to the town’s grocery store after buying some more clothes for Donghyuck. At the very least, the Radem Masters had held their promise of paying Jeno and Renjun well, and Jeno had choked when he’d seen the amount in his bank account on his phone screen. The transaction had been marked as fraudulent, actually, but that was waived relatively quickly. Jeno did not doubt that the Masters had something to do with that, much as they had something to do with the eight zeroes now in his account.

“Look at all the fruit!” Donghyuck had taken Renjun by the hand and was pointing out bananas and apples to him, and Jeno could not help but smile at the alien’s wonder. There was still so much he had to experience, although he’d already seen a lot alongside Jeno and Donghyuck.

There were still many things Jeno, too, wanted to experience, and buying a tub of ice cream and some spoons at the market to eat right outside with two boys he loved like they were children again was one of them.

The spoons were compostable plastic, but they still dueled with them. Jeno was a definite fan of cookie dough, but Donghyuck was a fan of anything Renjun liked (so he could taunt him with having it), and he was pleased that Renjun seemed to enjoy the ice cream. Jeno had the idea based on Renjun’s reception of other sweet things, and for the moment was more than happy to indulge the alien’s sweet tooth. They’d branch out soon, but for now, Jeno thought it was probably alright. And it was worth it to see the excitement with which Renjun tracked down the cookie dough chunks and ate them, savoring the buttery cookie flavor melting in the vanilla ice cream. Maybe next time they would try a different flavor, and maybe next time they would wait to get home before digging in. The shopkeeper certainly seemed amused, though, so Jeno thought that perhaps the mild embarrassment was worth it. He made a note to himself to go visit the dusty little town’s town market soon, when Mark was on one of his shifts. Maybe he’d have Renjun and Donghyuck tag along, and Donghyuck could answer all of Mark’s many demon questions. Mark always asked for too much information, and Jeno had the feeling that Donghyuck would give him too much information, but it would be a first meeting to remember.

Renjun kissed him there, in that somewhat larger dusty country town, when there were no people walking down the street or cars passing by, and it sent Jeno’s nerves soaring, although nobody was there to see. Donghyuck kissed him, too, and all three tasted like ice cream.

It was worth it for the gasp of surprise Donghyuck made when Jeno snuck some freezing ice cream into his mouth, though, and maybe it was because the demon had forgotten humans could be just as mischievous as demons.

They drove back before it got dark, and Jeno did the last of his daily chores and cared for his animals and watered his fields. Donghyuck and Renjun were already curled up in bed together when he arrived, and although Jeno was certain they had been making out lazily before, they were reading a novel. It was one of the New York Times Bestsellers Jeno hadn’t personally read, but that had been read by most of the reading clubs in America—particularly the ones full of elderly ladies or younger women complaining about their marriages.

Renjun set the novel off to the side when Jeno entered the room, and Jeno could not help but coo at the sight he returned to. Donghyuck, curled up in a little ball against Renjun’s chest, gave him the finger. “Don’t corrupt our darlin’,” Jeno tisked, and Donghyuck put up his other middle finger.

“Fine, be that way.”

Jeno was cold when he crawled under the covers, but Donghyuck in particular was warm. Warm, but distinctly whiny about “ice cube feet.” Still, that did not keep him from sleeping every night the sun went down over his hemisphere, resting and recharging his powers.

And although Jeno did not know it, and Renjun did not know it, and even Donghyuck did not know it, something else was resting and recharging its powers those nights. It was the opposite of a demon, but that did not mean that it was good.

❂ ❂ ❂

Sunlight filtered in sideways over the mountaintops as Jeno jogged Mars up and down one of the sides of a pasture. Donghyuck watched him and soaked in the sunlight, and Jeno snuck glances whenever he and Mars passed by. The demon really was looking healthier and even more beautiful by the day, more resplendent in his golden glow, and although Jeno had not been expecting it, he was pleased to see the progress. He hadn’t realized he had hurt Donghyuck so much, and the thought soured his stomach. Mars flicked an ear back at him, and Jeno murmured a quiet word to him. He had to think about things he could actually work on, like improving his horses, helping Renjun grow accustomed to living in human form, and helping Donghyuck regain his powers.

As if he were summoned, and perhaps he was, Renjun strolled up and leaned against the pasture fencing next to Donghyuck. When Jeno rode by again, he could hardly believe his luck. Not only was Donghyuck starting to glow again, but Renjun was, too. Renjun in his inhuman form was beautiful in a dangerous way, a way that suggested he held power within him and could wield it over mere mortals, but Renjun in his human form was beautiful in a soft way. Jeno did not doubt that the alien could defend himself (and Jeno, if it came down to it), but there was something incredible about seeing plush lips and gentle cheeks alongside the same clever eyes.

“Will you teach us to ride?” asked Renjun, once Jeno had brought Mars back down to the walk. The horse was puffing, a bit out of shape after the weeks off and losing weight in muscle, and Jeno gave him several pats on the neck for a job well done.

The horse liked Renjun and Donghyuck, that was for sure. He whuffled and sniffed Renjun’s hands, and allowed Donghyuck to stroke his muzzle with a soothing touch.

Jeno did teach them how to ride. He told them how to keep their balance, their cores far back so they did not have to hold onto the cantle of the saddle to stay steady, and he taught them how to be gentle yet firm. He taught them to feed the new cattle, to give instructions to Stella, and to repair the fencing alongside him.

There was something beautiful about how Donghyuck and Renjun grew accustomed to life on the farm. Jeno kissed their new bruises and blistered fingers and palms, and they paid him back in their own way, which usually involved him gasping against Renjun’s mouth, Donghyuck’s sharp nails threatening his skin but never harming him. Sometimes he’d feel the scratches for a few days, and that made him smile because they were scratches of a distinctly different kind than the skin condition his horses would occasionally get.

Renjun learned how to cook. Sometimes Jeno would return to the little farmhouse to find him hunched over a few pans, a Youtube video up on Jeno’s laptop attempting to talk him through the recipe. The thing was that Renjun was not half bad, and Jeno was happy to not have to always worry about feeding the three of them every night.

Donghyuck seemed to have no interest in cooking, and neither Jeno nor Renjun minded this. He seemed to enjoy building things out in one of the back sheds instead—sundials, to be precise. He built sundials, and then more sundials. Jeno wondered why, but did not think that it was his place to ask, so he simply enjoyed watching beauty bloom out of metal scraps. Sometimes he and Renjun would come to watch Donghyuck work in the same way that Donghyuck and Renjun would come watch Jeno work, or Donghyuck and Jeno would come watch Renjun work.

It was quiet on the farm again, as any farm like Jeno’s should have been, but it was not too quiet like the day they had found Donghyuck. It was the right kind of quiet, one they felt comfortable in, and they made it their own.

It was quiet on the farm again, and Jeno, Renjun, and Donghyuck recovered what they had lost in the past. His livelihood, his autonomy, his strength. They recovered, and they rediscovered. They woke with the sun, and slept with the moon. But things come in the quiet, things like the thing which crept up to Jeno’s door at sixty six minutes past six in the morning.

Lord Jihoon had always been a demon with a flair for the dramatic—if not in words, then in actions. His fist was firm when it rapped against the front door.

Renjun stirred awake first. They’d all been sleeping in, worn out from a night where the sun had shone for far longer than it had hung in the sky overhead, but the Radem’s senses were the most sensitive, so he woke first. He could smell the eternal flame, and it did not smell like Donghyuck.

Their demon woke next. He was woken by Renjun’s moving, not by his kin outside, but as soon as he was awake, he could sense the Lord, and it struck terror in his heart. He looked down at Jeno, sleeping peacefully even through the knocking, and back up at Renjun. It was an unspoken conversation, but eventually Donghyuck’s hand clasped around Jeno’s shoulder.

Jeno stirred, and he blinked sleepy eyes up at his lovers. He was soft, so very soft even with all his human strength, and as Donghyuck shook off the covers, Renjun took Jeno’s hand and guided him to hide under them. “Take this,” he said, and Jeno found himself clutching the pendant Renjun never took off, the one with the Veil inside of it. It hummed in his hand, and for once, he felt protected by its radiation.

Donghyuck crouched down beside the bed. “Jeno,” he began, and then he paused.

They stared at each other, the human and the demon. “Don’t say thank you,” Jeno pressed, and he extended his free palm up towards Donghyuck. “Come here.”

And under the earliest rays of the morning sun, they kissed.

The demon walked out, and Renjun followed him. Jeno hid back under the covers.

The demon walked out of the room, just like he walked out the door to receive his Lord.

“Haechan,” said Jihoon, Lord of Hell, with the guitar of lost souls in one hand and the flame of eternal regrets in the other. His voice was notably lacking its usual drawl. Donghyuck stood before him, his back straighter than Renjun had ever seen, looking his Lord in the eyes as was expected of a good demonic subject. “You are reinstated. I need your powers on a special case. We're going out to the outer rim of this galaxy.”

Donghyuck’s mouth dropped open, but it was barely long enough for Renjun to catch the motion with his eyes. “Yes, Sir!” He said what he had to say, and it was then that Renjun knew this was goodbye.

Lord Jihoon looked at Renjun, looked him in the eyes, and the Radem felt the fire burn in him for a moment incomprehensible. “Then let’s go,” said the Lord, and Donghyuck stepped up until he was at Lord Jihoon’s right side.

At one time, they were standing together on Jeno’s farmhouse doorstep, and then in the next, they had stepped into the light and were gone.

They were gone, and Renjun was filled with a kind of malevolent stillness. When too much time had passed, he felt a gentle palm closing around his own. “Let’s go inside,” Jeno said, and the same stillness was there in his voice. It was brittle, like Renjun’s skin felt.

Renjun had never been able to say hello before, so he had never had to say goodbye.

  
  


Just as they had gotten used to life on the farm as three, so Renjun and Jeno got used to life on the farm as two. They would talk about Donghyuck sometimes, at night, when Jeno was curled up against Renjun and the Radem was combing soft fingers through his hair.

“I hope he’s alright,” Jeno would say every time, and Renjun would nod.

“Us both.” There was a lot more they both wanted to say, but they could only handle it some nights. Other nights, they lay in silence, or talked of other things, or chased the sunup.

During the days, when Jeno’s new cattle had been moved out to the largest pasture on the ranch, Renjun would ride out with him. Renjun’s favorite was the same black Mars, while Jeno was back with his favorite of the ranch ponies, the trusty bright bay Master with as much chrome on his coat as heart in his chest. Sometimes it seemed that their ponies were asking where their third was, saying that they were incomplete, and it hurt just the same as it had at first.

It was one of the dark nights, the nights on which clouds rained down upon the valley, when a thought came to Jeno. He rolled over to face Renjun, and met those golden eyes in the void with his own. “Renjunnie,” he said, “are we going to be smote?”

It was one of the dark nights, the nights on which Celestials walked abroad with men and other mortals. But they did not come to see the pair curled together in Jeno’s farmhouse bed, because in a war as prolonged as theirs had been, both sides had work to do.

Renjun hummed, a human sound with an edge of the harmonics of the Radem’s Veil, and gave Jeno a kiss on the tip of his nose. “Well, we should make the most of our time, then.”

And it was like they were that lost human and that lost Radem tossed together into the Scout’s ship all over again, except this time they were taking the energy between them and running with it. It had finally awoken and stretched out its foal’s legs.

In time, they decided to get foals of their own. They got them from Doyoung, of course, who burst into staccato laughter of joy when they asked him. Almost as if he knew, and maybe he did, the first foal he lead out was a little chestnut colt, not yet a yearling. He walked with slightly shaky legs, but his coat shone copper-yellow in the sunlight, and chrome climbed up his four legs in stockings. He had been given a splash of white on his belly, too, and a snip on his nose, and he was beautiful.

“This is Sunny,” said Doyoung as he walked the small creature up and down the road in front of Jeno and Renjun.

They looked at each other when the foal came over to sniff Jeno’s pockets for treats, and Doyoung knew that he was sold. “Hello, Full Sun,” Jeno greeted, and the foal nickered at being given a sugar cube.

Full Sun and his half-sister, Full Moon, went home with them that very afternoon. Jeno put them in the paddock that butted up against the house so that he and Renjun could open the kitchen door and give them pets (and apples, of course).

Time flew by as years of sunlight. They hadn’t realized how much they’d taken their sun for granted until he was gone, but at least every morning they could wake up and say good morning to him, burning high up in the sky. And although they did not know it, their sun did hear them, and he told his Celestial form to fall more gently upon them.

Jeno found that he was considerably less sunburned, which was a plus. Renjun colored in the sunlight but did not burn, either, although he did gain a smattering of freckles. They ran up his neck and across the bridge of his nose, and though Renjun did not seem to care one way or the other about them, Jeno loved them.

They looked like the stars. Even though Renjun had lost his work amongst them, he carried them on his skin now, and his spaceship was still parked in the back. They had taken a trip around the Moon one year, the Radem back in his void form, black against the black, and it had been like the old days in a way. But it was also like the new days, because as they orbited low over the lunar canyons, Jeno held Renjun close. He had been touch starved for so very long that Jeno had made it his goal to give him as much as he could, and he liked to think that his Scout was less tense because of it.

They had flown around the moon, and then made one orbit around the sun, and had spoken to their Sun. They both hoped that he remembered their names.

He did. Donghyuck always did.

In a way, Renjun and Jeno had their own version of a sun salutation. They did not miss a day, and they still rose with the sun and began their day by greeting it. It was on one of these early mornings, the aurora soft around them, soft like Jeno’s hands tangling in Renjun’s honeyed hair, when they heard it.

Knuckles against their door.

He did not have to knock twice, because Jeno and Renjun were there, dragging open the door with ruffled hair and limbs still heavy with sleep. They knew who it was even before it was open.

Lee Donghyuck stood in the aurora, framed in the softest pink of the rising sun. He looked tired, so very tired, so Jeno stepped forward and gathered him in his arms. “I’ve got you,” he whispered, and felt the proud body sag against him.

##  _I Saw the Light in a Sunrise_

It should have been strange, having Donghyuck back after years. The thought of him had always been there, paired with sadness like the whiskey Jeno had pulled out during later years. Jeno and Renjun had always known it was possible that he would return, but had not been counting on it.

It should have been strange, but it was not. Jeno still knew how to cook for three, and Renjun was more than happy to press kisses to the top of Donghyuck’s hair as they waited for their first meal as a trio. Stella had claimed his lap for a head rest, and it seemed that she had decided he was one of her people. Jeno was not surprised that she remembered Donghyuck.

The demon had gone grey some time while he was gone, but Renjun did not mention it. It was a nice grey, actually, more silver than a combination of the black-and-white he had had when they had first met him. Renjun hoped it was not due to stress or trauma, but did not know how to ask, so he just held Donghyuck’s hands in his own and swung them back and forth.

They talked during dinner. Donghyuck did not mention what he’d been doing, but he was happy to hear about what his cowboy and his space cowboy had been up to in the meantime. “You really named a pony after me?”

  
Renjun nodded. “Yep, Full Sun. He lives right out back of the house normally, but Jeno sent him to Doyoung to be broken. He should be back in a few days, though, since he's almost saddle-broke. They say he’ll be a champion some day.”

They ate their dinner and barely tasted it, even though it was the first meal Donghyuck had had for a long time. There was a lot Donghyuck wanted to say, but it was clear that he was not ready to say it yet, so once their plates were clean, Jeno gathered them all up and washed them right then and there. Renjun rolled his eyes, and Donghyuck got it rather quickly. “Someone’s eager,” he shouted over the running of the water, and Jeno shook his head and turned the faucet off.

“Only if you two feel up to it,” Jeno responded, and Donghyuck and Renjun exchanged a Look. They both knew it would have to be Donghyuck to make the move, but he waited until Jeno was finished drying the dishes to approach him.

A pair of slender arms snaked around Jeno’s waist when he set the towel down. He hadn’t even heard the demon move, but he recognized the feeling of Donghyuck pressed against his back. “Alright cowboy, wanna knock boots?”

It was worth it for the way Jeno colored and sputtered, and Renjun began to giggle at the sight. “Please don’t,” Jeno pouted once he’d regained his composure. Donghyuck merely stuck his tongue out, and Jeno could not help but be relieved. It was clear that it _was_ their demon who had appeared on their doorstep that morning and was towing him out of the kitchen, Renjun tagging close behind.

They were too busy chasing the Sun to see most of the night.

❂ ❂ ❂

In the morning, Jeno made biscuits and gravy. The proper Southern ones, with just enough crispy, flaky outsides and insides softer than what Jeno assumed the clouds in Heaven were like. If there _was_ a Heaven, that is. The recipe had been passed down through his family for generations, so he knew the adjustments to make based on humidity by heart.

If there was a time when Jeno was expecting Donghyuck to suddenly open up, it was not over the biscuits. But he did, and Renjun and Jeno both paused to listen. “I came back because something is happening in your town.”

The most surprising thing was that there was something actually _happening,_ and the second most surprising thing was the tone that Donghyuck took. Neither Jeno nor Renjun had ever heard it before, not even when Donghyuck had been trapped in the pentagram. “What is it?” prompted Jeno. He knew the Sheriff, he could go over to his house if he needed to be told in person.

“There’s some power growing here. It’s Celestial, and we think it’s a demon gone rogue. A deserter, maybe.”

Renjun realized that he had been pouring honey onto his biscuit for the whole time, and set the sad, bedraggled thing down on his plate. “We?”

Donghyuck nodded. “Yes, Lord Jihoon and I. My Lord has human agents in the area, who do not necessarily support demons, but who give us information.” Jeno and Renjun looked at each other across the table, yet their expressions were both saying different things. “We only care about this because other demons are having trouble passing through.”

Song sparrows were singing outside, their voices airy and angelic. “So you decided to stay here rather than pass through?” Jeno’s voice was not harsh against that of the sparrows, and Donghyuck was surprised by the lack of anger. He hadn’t been in contact with them for years after he had walked through the front door, but perhaps the anger he was holding in his heart was not held in the others’.

“I decided to stay,” agreed Donghyuck, and then he said something which stunned the entire world into silence. Even the birds stopped singing. “Forever, if you’ll have me.”

Haechan, the demon of the Full Sun, had only felt fear a handful of times. This, as he waited for a response, was one of those times. His heart kicked against his ribcage to the same beat as one of Jeno’s impatient cow ponies, and although he could not see it himself, the golden glow he always carried had turned pale.

Renjun did not hesitate as he reached across the table to take Donghyuck’s hands, palm to palm. His fingers were sticky with honey, and it tied the two of them together. Light and dark, starshine and the void. “Forever,” he said.

As if they had shared the same thought, and in fact they probably had, they both looked over at Jeno. “Forever,” he grinned, and honeyed fingers found their way in between his own.

It would not be Forever, but it would be for as long as the Sun would shine, which Donghyuck well expected to be several million years. Demonic powers were strong.

Their first stop, when they were back together as a trio, was naturally where every newly-reunited alien and human trio would go: the town market. It was one of Mark’s shifts (although a more interesting question might have been when it was _not_ one of Mark’s shifts), and when Donghyuck strode in with the Radem and human following close behind, they were all stopped in their tracks by the sight of who exactly Mark was ringing up groceries for.

Jeno did not recognize the small body, the soft grey hair, but in some way, the lack of initial recognition was how he knew who it was. And he was right, because when Jihoon glanced over his shoulder at Mark’s wave at the group, he gave Donghyuck a smile and a nod.

_Wait, a smile?_ Yes, Jeno’s eyes were not deceiving him. The Lord of Hell was smiling at Donghyuck, although his gaze was scanning over the younger demon’s companions as he did so. Although Jihoon’s eyes were a rather plain dark brown, Jeno could feel the burn of their scrutiny. It did not hurt, though; it was similar to passing a finger through the flame of a candle, feeling the heat but no pain.

“Hey, Jeno!” greeted Mark, and the demon lord looked away from their small group. It was not a relief, but Jeno was not sad about it, either. “And Renjun, and is that—is that _Donghyuck?”_

It had taken Mark a little bit to recognize the demon, but then again it had been years since he had been visibly present in town, and Donghyuck was surprised to be recognized at all. But he put on the face he wore when he walked the highways and sauntered up to the counter, feeling Jihoon’s watchful gaze on him the whole time. It no longer scared him like it once had, although it did promote respect from someone infamously rebellious to figures of authority. “Hey, sugar,” said Donghyuck, and he just knew that Renjun and Jeno were looking at each other and rolling their eyes. “Seen any strange figures recently? Fellows outside the regulars, who seem to carry a bit of the…. flames in them?”

Mark stared resolutely down at the black counter of checkout line. “The flames of lust?” he squeaked, and Donghyuck noticed with amusement how a deep brush was settling across his cheekbones and crawling down his neck. Goodness, thought Donghyuck, Jeno had not been lying when he’d said Mark really _was_ a blusher.

“You could call some of them that.” Donghyuck nodded, and Mark finally looked him in the eyes again. “I’m talking about demons, Mark.”

It was deadly silent in the town market, save for Mark’s inner panic, which was loud enough that everyone present could hear it, including the human. Jeno quelled the urge to laugh. “I don’t think I’ve seen any, except…. except there was this one fellow who passed through last month. He was blonde and very handsome, but handsome like his charm was a weapon. And he was so very hot, I could feel it pouring off of him. I don’t think it was his bodily temperature, you know? And now I’m rambling, and—”

“You saw a demon, didn’t you?” It was Jihoon, and his voice was much lighter and higher than Jeno had falsely expected based on Donghyuck’s past description of his greatest fear. As if the Lord could hear what Jeno was thinking, he gave the human a sharp glance, and Jeno realized he needed to keep his mind to himself. “Well, besides myself, and my little Haechan here?”

It would have comedic, how quickly Mark went to surprised to horrified to terrified in the span of several painful seconds, had Jeno not been honestly worried for his friend. “You’re—you’re demons?”

Jihoon nodded, because Donghyuck knew it was not his place to speak yet. “Yes.” The Lord of Hell seemed to be a demon of few but true words, and Jeno could not help but begin to like him. Renjun was more uncertain, because he had seen the demon appear on Jeno’s doorstep that fateful morning years ago.

Mark looked at Jihoon, then at Donghyuck, then at Jeno, then back at Jihoon. “So…. did Jeno summon a succubus that one time he cut a pentagram into his field years ago?”

Now Donghyuck’s turn to speak had come. He smiled at Mark, overly sweet, and could feel his human’s and his Radem’s amusement behind him without even seeing their expressions. “That’s not really my intended job, but I’m personally more of an incubus.”

If Mark’s expressions had previously been on the scale of “horror, in fear of pain,” his expressions were now on the scale of “horror, received too much information.” Jeno was chuckling in the background, low and rich, and Donghyuck smirked at the sound. “I shouldn’t have asked, should I?”

“Probably not,” agreed Jihoon, and Mark jumped at the sound of his voice like he was expecting to be smote. Which, admittedly, was not an irrational fear when faced with a Lord of Hell, although the poor cashier had no idea who he was working with. He’d come to work expecting to have to restock the dairy, not to meet demons and their lovers. “Thank you for the information, though.”

Mark squeaked again. “Are you going to do something with it?” Jeno knew what he was thinking, so he stepped forward until he was standing beside the cash register and the boy he had known longer than any other.

“Hey, the demons are here because they think there’s something wrong in our town. A rogue demon, maybe. We think it might have been the one you saw, and we also think that it might be a danger to other demons and humans.” Jeno kept his voice low and steady, much like how he soothed his horses. If Mark noticed the technique being used on him, he did not comment. “Don’t call the police, they won’t be able to help us enough. But we’ll keep you safe, and we’ll work hard to make sure everyone else is safe, too.”

It was hard, watching the fear for himself in Mark’s eyes change into fear for his friends. “You’ll be safe?”

“As safe as I can be,” Jeno agreed, at the same time that Renjun and Donghyuck spoke up.

“We’ll keep him safe until our last breaths.”

Mark sighed. “Alright, man. If there’s anything I can do for you, just give me a call. And I’ll let you know if the man—demon—comes around again.” And just like that, memories of high school, of dusty afternoons out back by the baseball diamond, threatened to flood Jeno like the rising tide. “I’ll ask the others to keep an eye out, too.”

“Thank you,” said Jeno, and when he looked Mark in the eye, he could tell that they were remembering the same things. Donghyuck leaned in ever so slightly into Jeno’s side, and the contact was grounding enough that he held it together.  
  


They left the town market hand in hand in hand, with Jihoon walking before them as was polite and custom. Jeno was expecting the Lord of Hell to say a quick word then disappear off to wherever demons went to pass their time, but he did not. He turned back to face them, and the trio immediately straightened their spines. Dust swirled around them like it was waiting for something, or perhaps someone. “Renjun! You are a Radem, correct?”

Renjun grew tense at being addressed, but he stayed cool. He had been trained well, he had said, and Jeno trusted him to interact with authorities. “Yes, sir.”

“Your senses for radiation are keener than those of Celestials or humans. Can you distinguish individual emission spectrums when alongside black body radiation?”

The Radem blinked. Jihoon was watching him carefully, and Renjun could not help but feel like a rodent being inspected by a hunting kite hovering just above the field. “Yes, sir,” he replied again, because he indeed could. He had never tried before, but the idea behind it was simple enough.

“Good,” said Jihoon, and the smile he gave was only the slightest bit crooked. “Then I can give you an emission spectrum, and you can track it to its source?”

He’d had an idea of what he was going to be asked, but actually hearing it said filled Renjun with something which was not dread. No, it was much more than that: it was joy, it was the thrill of the hunt, it was the Scout’s lifeblood. “Yes, sir.”

He got the spectrum later that afternoon, and poured over it all night. By the time the sun rose the next day, Renjun knew exactly what he had to do, and exactly how he was going to begin accomplishing it.

Donghyuck and Jeno went out with him early that morning. Although they would have covered more area individually, they decided it was safer to stick together while tracking. This was Renjun’s passion, guiding the ship to where he guessed it needed to go and checking if he was right, but Jeno too enjoyed the return to the Scouting life. It was something one did not easily forget, even if one had not done it in years.

The ship had missed them, too, and she welcomed Donghyuck into her space and sheltered him like she sheltered all her boys. Her computer worked hard based on the wavelength parameters Renjun gave it. Previously, they had corresponded to the kinds of crates they were looking to pick up, but now they corresponded to the emission spectrums of several elements: hydrogen and helium in great quantities, and oxygen, iron, nitrogen, and carbon in smaller amounts, the building blocks of the vast stars in the sky. Celestials had the individual spectra visible alongside the black body radiation like Renjun’s.

There were many demons in the area, although they knew that most were just passing through. So they started to work to determine which ones were locals and which were travellers, but there were so very many to sort through.

They did this the next day, and the next, and began to make patterns from the mess. They’d have to visit the stationary demons one by one, and they merely hoped that they had the time.

As it was, something was moving out there, making patterns of its own, and they did not have the time.

  
  


The strangest phone call Jeno had ever received came from Jaehyun at forty-two minutes past three in the morning. Jeno picked it up because he would always help a friend in need, and beside him and around him, the other two woke and listened in to the short, abrupt message.

  
  


It was dark on Doyoung and Jaehyun’s property, but it did not feel like the normal kind of dark. It was closer to the kind of dark that Jihoon caused, a dark beyond the dark, a night beyond the night, a blanket tossed over the land to smother those under it.

But it was not caused by Jihoon. The demon Lord was pacing along the dusty driveway, flames licking at his skin, jumping from shoulder to shoulder. It had terrified Jeno more than the phone call had, and the call had been rather menacing in tone. Something about seeing the stoic Lord of Hell so visibly distraught was more than spooky; it was dreadful. His eyes flamed in the way his counterpart did not, sprawled across the grass of one of the yearling paddocks.

“We’ll figure this out,” Renjun murmured to Donghyuck. The younger of the demons nuzzled into his shoulder, and his tears were burning hot. They did not harm the Radem’s skin because he was not really _human,_ but they kept him warm in the coldness of the night.

The demon Jihoon had summoned was crouched over the odd sprawling lines of Soonyoung. It was clear that Jihoon could not watch, but the other Lord’s star was still burning—Jihoon and Donghyuck had both checked—so he was still alive. 

Jeno had not gotten much of a look at him, but it seemed that he did not have much of a body left. He had seen far too much white that was not starlight, and far too much dark slickness that was not pooled night, and too many odd angles that were not the paddock fencing. It had made him sick to his stomach, so he had returned to Donghyuck and Renjun over by the driveway.

“What did this?” he asked, rubbing the small of Donghyuck’s back with a warm, broad palm. “Was it a demon?”

Donghyuck shook his head, and Renjun and Jeno snapped their heads up to look at each other. The alien was so surprised that some of his void form snapped through; his eyes glowed golden in the night, and it was not eyeshine, and his radiation shot outwards and vibrated through those present. The shape attached to his chest shook as he tried to pull himself together, and despite his terror, Jeno cooed wordlessly at him. The sound gave Donghyuck something to focus on, something to think about, and he slowly came back to himself, and to the two who had sandwiched him protectively between them.

“It was an angel,” said Donghyuck, or at least he tried to say. His voice broke the first time, but he gathered up his strength and his power and he said it again, and it came out fully this time. He peeked up at Renjun, and saw the worries he was holding in his starry heart reflected in those honeyed eyes. "The Archangels like doing stuff like that. I've heard they hold lesser angels' bodies captive with their spirits, but that.... that could have been a tall tale spread by my unit."

Jeno pressed a kiss to his cheek, and Donghyuck accepted it, there under the moonlight that was far too bright and not nearly fiery enough. “Do you need to leave? We can go with you, go somewhere where you’ll be safe.” Then a silly thought came to Jeno, and despite the smothering of the night, he smiled a little. “We could go to the Maldives, you know. Sip mojitos on the beach…. curl up in the sun…. make love….”

Donghyuck hit him with an elbow, although it was less than half-hearted. “Come on,” he sighed, even though Jeno’s words did make him feel a bit more grounded. He could not leave, but his beloveds could, and they could be safe. _And if they did not want to leave, he could always send them to the Maldives with his powers and make them forget._

The thought filled him with shame. It was hot, and it heated in him the coldness of the night, but not in the way that he liked. But he would go through with it if he needed to, because Haechan, the Full Sun demon, had two things that he loved more than anything else in this world, and they were named Jeno and Renjun.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Renjun rumbled, and Donghyuck could feel the vibrations of his voice through his chest. He could hear the Radem’s heartbeats, too, and the familiar inhuman beat calmed him. “We’d remember. There’s nothing you could do to make us forget you.”

Donghyuck hid his face in the safety of Renjun’s shoulder again, where he did not have to face his boyfriends or his thoughts. Jeno and Renjun let him for now, knowing that he was fragile enough then that any misstep could break him. So Jeno took one hand, and Renjun took the other, and they held the sun between their bodies as the Lords of Hell, the binary stars, drew farther and farther apart.

  
  


❂ ❂ ❂

It was strange, seeing a Lord of Hell at Jeno’s table, eating breakfast along with the human, alien, and other demon. Jihoon had impeccable table manners—not that Jeno was particularly surprised, because the demon had obviously not gained his position without any diplomacy. “The spectra Renjun is tracking will work for both demons and angels, but I believe there is a quicker way to distinguish between them. If you expand your search to include larger quantities of noble gases, you’ll probably have better luck.”

Renjun nodded. _Noble gases, huh?_ He almost wanted to laugh at the statement, but then he remembered the look on Jihoon’s face as his binary star was pored over by the healer the demons had brought in. “I don’t joke,” added the lord, and Renjun swallowed hard. He suddenly wished to be in his void form, because at least then fewer people (or demons) could read his emotions from his face. Or perhaps he wanted to be swallowed up by the ground, or sent out into space.

“Yes, sir,” agreed Jeno. The moment was broken, and Renjun could breathe again. “We can begin looking for it now.”

_Sent out into space,_ thought Renjun, and a sudden thought came to him. It had been there in his mind for a long time, but it had not come to him for a long time. “Is there something that would increase a demon’s power? Maybe some sort of electromagnetic radiation?”

The Lord of Hell stared at the Scout, but the predatory look in Jihoon’s eye now was on their side. Perhaps it was time to break out the old interstellar drive on the starship parked out back.

“Yes,” said Jihoon, Lord of Hell, carrier of the flame of eternal regrets and the guitar of lost souls, and the light around them seemed somewhat brighter.

❂ ❂ ❂

“Let’s bring her down gently,” Renjun announced. Jeno was at the controls, the alien ready to make a quick drop down from the ship once it landed to grab two crates and carry them onboard.

“I’ve got you,” replied Jeno, and once the ship was on its computerized landing sequence, he looked over his shoulder at Renjun. The Radem was gorgeous in his current form, bleeding little light from his void, the pendant strung around the shape of his neck glowing a few shades lighter than his eyes, his four arms seemingly wisps against the bare metal of the ship but strong, oh so strong.

Renjun’s eyes changed then, into glitter and gold. “I know, dear,” he said, and Jeno would have been lying if he said the human endearment didn’t still make his heart kick backflips. “I’ll be quick.”

And quick he was. As he slipped out under the cover of the darkness, he was the darkness, and the darkness was him. He ran to the Target, and found two crates waiting for him. He had not told the Masters of his plan, or what he needed them for, but they were there just the same. They did not glow.

Renjun clasped his hands around them and lifted them, and did not catch sight of the crop circle’s human maker. He had an offhand wonder of whether they really _were_ made by humans, or whether they were created by the Masters. But that mattered little, when Renjun knew that what he had to do was pick up the crates, and carry them back onto the ship. Those small crates, seemingly infinitely light in his hands, held the possibilities for the demons. So he carried them carefully, and he carried them well, and his Scouting duty was fulfilled.

Perhaps the last official Scouting mission he had been given had not been his final job—maybe it was the start of a new era for him. Before he let himself get carried away with that thought, Renjun shook his head and piloted the ship back to Jeno’s ranch. They’d gathered everyone in one of the empty feed barns, the very one that Donghyuck had been kept in after Jeno and Renjun had found him in the field, and the silence was deafening as Renjun passed the crate down the ladder to Jeno and they walked into the barn together.

“This is it?” It was Jihoon, because of course it was him. But there was something different about the Lord of Hell that night: someone stood beside him. It was another Lord of Hell, and Renjun did not need to be told that it was Lord Soonyoung to know who it was. The demon seemed fainter in Renjun’s eyes than the other Lord, and the Radem reckoned that this was because he was so very low on energy. But he was healing.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” confirmed Renjun. The demon nodded, seemingly satisfied, and across the makeshift circle in the barn, Donghyuck nodded at his alien. “When it is opened, it will give the opener a sudden and intense boost of energy.”

Jaehyun raised his hand halfway, seemingly afraid to commit to his question. 

“Yes, Jaehyun?”

“Is it radioactive?”

Renjun pondered this. He wondered how much the others could read from his honey eyes and honeyed words, and decided to speak to the best of his knowledge. “It emits electromagnetic radiation,” he said, “and though it does not emit radioactive particles like alpha or beta particles, it may emit gamma rays. I am unsure. The Masters did not tell me any more than that when I asked them about energy types.”

The barn was quiet as everyone else pondered in turn. “Gamma rays? Won’t those tear the opener apart?” It was Doyoung, who had been a rather educated cityboy with an engineering job once upon a time.

Quiet turned to fear. “The Masters said that demons are equipped to handle large and intense bursts of energy.” Renjun told him exactly what he had been told, although it didn’t make Doyoung look much happier.

“That’s true.” Everyone looked at the speaker, and Jeno resisted the urge to gawk. It was Soonyoung, Lord of Hell, and his voice was true to what Donghyuck had heard. He _did_ sound like someone who laughed hard and laughed often, although now he was entirely serious. “Demons are made to absorb gamma rays because their stellar components are exposed in space. Harness your weaknesses and whatnot.”

Jeno nodded. He listened carefully, that human, and the extraterrestrials were more than willing to accommodate him. “Could it backfire and, ah, power up an angel instead?”

The Lords of Hell looked at each other. Donghyuck was the only one who knew this, but they were having a private conversation over their bond. The younger demon had never had an entanglement bond, and he doubted it would be possible with a human and a Radem, but there were many things he would sacrifice for them. As far as Donghyuck knew, such communication bonds were only possible for demons, but then again he had never really known an angel who he could ask. Celestials were notoriously bad at getting along and good at drawing those around them into their scuffles.

Well, perhaps “scuffles” was not the correct way to describe them, Donghyuck thought. Celestial fights often left entire sections of galaxies uninhabitable for _any_ race, and he hoped that fate would not come to the place he and his fiery half had come to love. If he had any say in it, Donghyuck would stop that from happening. He would fight until his last breath, his last burn, if he had to, and this was not something he had to question in his heart of hearts.

“Alright,” said Jihoon. “One of the demons, Donghyuck, will open it when it’s time for our shootout.”

Donghyuck’s eyes shot open. Jeno gasped, and the sound echoed in the cavernous space. Renjun was silent, but his stellar blood ran cold. “Sir… why me?”

Jihoon smiled at him then, really smiled, and it did not alarm him. “Because you’re the last one they’ll expect to fight them, whoever they are. You’re a demon among Lords, and that gives you the power.” Then he looked out over the humans, and they felt their skin tingle at the demon’s own power. “I will assign people in your area demon protectors who I trust. They will keep you humans safe, and you humans can help them fight if they need to.”

Doyoung shifted uneasily. “You wonder how you can help?” The cowboy nodded, happy for once that Jihoon could read his uppermost thoughts. “Well, you humans are exceedingly clever in your own way. You know the land, and you know your people, and the angel—or angels—know neither.”

It was a funny place for such a meeting to be happening, a turning of the tide for Celestials and humans and the odd Radem alike, but at the same time, it was the perfect place. A few barn cats were playing in the dusty corners, tabby and black and tortoiseshell, pinning each other and nibbling at ears but not harming each other. Playfighting to become stronger, so that they would be ready to catch birds.

The group gathered in the barn were ready to catch birds, birds who still remembered how to fly, with souls of the sky in their hearts and flames in their eyes. But their flames burned differently than demons, although one time, long ago, they had been one and the same.

Celestials did not talk about that time.

  
  


❂ ❂ ❂

  
  


Time passed, and Jeno found himself stepping into a room filled with people. People, not demons this time, and they watched him carefully. No, not carefully—hungrily. They were hungry for knowledge, and they knew that Jeno could give it to them, so he could not help but feel rather like a small rodent about to be snatched by a cat’s paw.

Lord Jihoon was at the front of the Town Hall. His presence both alarmed and reassured Jeno, because even with the increasing amount of time they were spending around each other, the human was still respectfully intimidated by the demon’s power. It was probably better for Jeno that way.

Jihoon spoke the words, and Jeno was there for moral support. To be clear, moral support for the humans present in the room, not the demonic lord, who bled power by the minute. It was a different kind of bleeding power than Renjun had: this was the intentional manipulation of power to make it ooze from his very being and command respect, while Renjun’s was more of a beautiful leak. Jeno’s observation made him wonder what Donghyuck would be like if he managed his power in the same way, and if it would affect him more because of their relationship. And before he knew it, the demon’s speech was over, and the folks of Jeno’s dusty little town were on their feet shouting out questions and demanding answers.

“Everyone, please stay calm,” Jeno said into his microphone, and that made the noise worse. He sighed and buckled down for a long and painful night.

❂ ❂ ❂

The next morning, there was someone new at every house’s door. It was a demon, of course, and each carried a duffle bag.

They may have been demons, spawned of the eternal flame, but they were not _heathens._ Sometimes they just needed to make a good first impression on their new sidekicks.

There was someone new at every house’s door—except for one. Jeno’s small blue farm house did not have someone new at the door that morning, but rather someone familiar. More than familiar, someone who knew Renjun and Jeno intimately. Someone who could identify them based on the way they chuckled, the way they snored in the middle of the night, the way they gasped his name.

Jeno opened the door this time, and his smile was brighter than the Sun Donghyuck was known for. Donghyuck had not thought it was possible for a demon to be scorched before, but he had just been burned as his heart took off racing. “Please, come in,” said Jeno, just as people were doing the same all across town. “The table has just been set.”

The table was lain in brilliant oranges and reds, the colors of the harvest, the colors of Donghyuck’s star. It was strange how such a simple gesture made something inside him stir, something quiet and rare. And there, cast under the soft yellow light of Jeno’s dining room, Haechan the Full Sun demon cried for the first time.

Water puts out fire almost every single time. This was the one exception to the rule. Donghyuck felt his fire grow within him, a wildfire fierce and consuming, ready to burn all who threatened the two standing beside the table, watching him with soft, concerned eyes. “I will fight for you,” said Donghyuck, a shake to his voice which once would have made Donghyuck angry, but now showed him his power. “I will protect you.”

Jeno stepped forward and wrapped him up in a hug. He held him loosely so that Donghyuck could leave if he wanted, but the smaller held him tighter. “We will fight for you,” said Renjun, resting a palm on Donghyuck’s shoulder. It was surprisingly warm every single time, for someone made of void and the light of stars it contained.

“We will protect you,” finished Jeno, and in every house in town, the same words were being said.

Donghyuck took a shuddering breath and locked eyes with Renjun. He did not wonder why the table was laden with honey, and did not question how it became laden with more, because he was the one who suggested it. The wood groaned under the added weight, but the table held, and the garnishments neatly placed upon it found themselves moved under the demon’s power. The things on the table were sacrifices to him, after all, sacrifices which would boost his strength and his power, so he would enjoy them after. And given the way that Renjun was on the table and how he sang, one might have guessed that made him a sacrifice, too.

They ate demonically-warmed biscuits and Georgia peaches afterwards, and were all warmed by the sun’s hazy late afternoon glow.

Later, they drove to see everyone inside and just outside the town, and checked every house. They met Taeil, newly housed with Doyoung and Jaehyun, and Sicheng, who had joined Jeno’s fellow young farmer, Jaemin. They met a Taeyong and a Yuta and a Jungwoo, and Donghyuck was impressed by Jihoon’s picks. He was honored to be amongst them, the small mid-phase star he was. It was not as strange as it might have been, because if there was one thing Jeno’s dusty town had, it was good old Southern hospitality, even despite it being north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Night fell. The demons made their way to Town Hall under the cover of darkness, and high up in the sky, far above all of their heads, the angel watched them move.

  
  


_It was dark inside Town Hall. Nothing scurried between the tables and the chairs scattered around the outskirts, covered in the dust of the ages. Nothing moved save for the two lying in the middle of the floor, staring up at the glass windows now high above their heads. They were looking out the window because past the interference of the glass, they could see the stars, and with their unnatural vision, two in particular._

_The stars orbited each other in a dance of flames across the night sky. It could have heralded destruction for the both of them, but they had each settled into orbits millenia ago, and they held onto each other with their gravity. It was beautiful, although not as many observed it as the star around which the Earth swung endlessly, but that worked well for them. That meant they could lie tangled on the floor of the Town Hall together with everything the people had forgotten over time, tangled and tangling and drawing their old powers and gaining new ones from each other. They were familiar to each other, and the lines they traced were as known to them as the lines of fire they made through the void._

  
  


Dawn broke silently. Not even a bird sang in the distance, and Renjun and Jeno woke to find Donghyuck curled between them in this restful but unsettling quiet. For once the demon was not the first one awake, and his two lovers were able to see him without the caress of the stars written below his eyes. Renjun smoothed a hand down Donghyuck’s side, and the demon made a little noise in his sleep and snuggled closer to Jeno.

They did not wake him, although something outside woke and prepared itself to face its day.

  
  


“We will send the demons out in front, with the humans and Renjun at the back to serve as seconds.” Jeno’s timbre was calm, unlike the storm within his heart and lungs. “With any luck, we will be able to talk our way out of conflict.”

Seated in one of the rickety plastic folded chairs that had not been white for several decades, Donghyuck resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The chances of there being no conflict was infinitesimally close to zero. But he did not tell Jeno that, because he wanted his human to keep his hope.

Hope was a powerful thing, even to a demon, and it was clear that Jeno had not gotten to where he now was without hoping at all. In fact, Donghyuck would have gone so far as to say that Jeno was a chronic optimist, someone who would always see what could be. A dixie whistler, Donghyuck thought, and it made him smile. He was not sure when he had started to think of that as a good thing—perhaps when he had fallen for Jeno, or rather had the rug swept out from under his feet.

But Donghyuck was not about to look back. He grabbed onto his future, or rather his Jeno, with both hands, as soon as the people had had their questions answered (although not to their satisfaction).

A woman approached Jeno. She was not young, but she was not old, and she carried the weight of the world upon her shoulders. “Excuse me, sir?”

“Yes, ma’am?” replied Jeno, and Donghyuck watched the interaction with interest. He had never really understood all the human customs, even with all the time he had spent infiltrating and exploring their society. “May I help you?”

“Will my son’s horse be safe? We just bought it for him last week, it’s a present for his fifteenth birthday. He hasn’t met it yet because it’s a surprise.”

Jeno bit his lip. He knew what was unspoken, about the price of such a gift, the strain it would put on a family, but also the joy the gift would bring. “I can stable it in my barn. My ranch is a bit outside of town, about fifteen miles, so it should be safe there.”

The woman did not cry, but Donghyuck could tell that she was close to it. He did not know as much as Jeno about the value of horses, but as he had become stronger, he could read some of her topmost thoughts. He held Jeno’s hand a bit tighter, and Jeno squeezed his palm back.

The accumulations of the ages, from horse hair from the nineteenth century to a broken watch battery, lay forgotten in the dusty corners of Town Hall. If Donghyuck could sense any of the bonding which had taken place there in the darkest, stillest hours of the night, he would not say, and Jihoon and Soonyoung trusted his silence. The other demons had suspicious, but they would never ask such a question of their lords.

Dust rose under their boots when they stepped outside. They were not ready, but they would never be ready, because a ragtag group of ranchers, a selection of lesser demons, and one-and-a-half demon Lords might not have been enough against an angel. Or worse than a loss, both Lords knew, would be a stalemate. Galactic sectors were destroyed not by fast victories or defeats, but drawn-out confusion.

Jihoon hoped that if they died, they would die quickly. Soonyoung hoped that if they won, they would win quickly.

Stella Blue was waiting for her new favorite group when Jeno opened the door. She stood just behind it, tail wagging and tongue flopping off to the side. “Hello, Stella,” greeted Jeno, crouching down to grab the leash and collar she did not often wear, “are you ready to be a very brave girl?”  
  


If a dog could smile, she would have been. As it was, Jeno could feel the joy pouring off of her like rain off the top of an umbrella, and Stella was practically dancing as her human secured the harness around her. “Alright girl, let’s get you into the truck.”

  
  


They sent the Scouts in first. Jeno and Stella walked up to the small farmhouse that Renjun had identified as being a probable candidate for housing the angel, because it had contained wavelengths shorter than those present in the typical stellar emissions. They carried nothing extraterrestrial on them, but Stella had a small camera attached to her collar.

If the angel was going to be suspicious about one of the two of them, it would be Jeno. He was clearly human, but it was likely that the angel had noticed the uptick in demonic activity in the general area, and had connected them with people in town. So Jeno found himself carrying a homemade peach pie up to the door, with his favorite shepherd by his heel and the hope of the demons tied onto her by a string.

Jeno knocked. It was funny, how he suddenly remembered that morning when the Lord of Hell had knocked on _his_ farmhouse door to steal Donghyuck away.

But Donghyuck had come back to them in time. Jeno rocked on his toes and stared down at his dusty boots. His exhale was as ragged as his nerves.

The door opened; it did not creak, and in a way, that was more unnerving to Jeno than his expectation had been. He found himself wishing that he was back on the command ship of the Radem fleet, reporting to the Masters with Renjun by his side, and Donghyuck between the two of them this time. But his thought was cut off by someone peering out from the newly-opened door.

He was beautiful. Very, very beautiful, from the tips of his bleached blonde hair to the silken socks worn under a cream suit. Jeno had known that angels were supposed to be terrifying, perhaps terrifyingly beautiful, but he was not terrified.

Jeno was wrong. If there was one being worthy of terror present in that dusty old town, it was this one. The angel smiled at him, soft and, well, _angelic,_ and Jeno remembered he was supposed to offer the pie. “Hi,” said Jeno, and his voice was just as steady as it was when he was talking to an injured horse, or a hurting person. “I’m Jeno, I think I’m your new neighbor. Stella here and I came over to give you a gift to welcome you to town.”

The angel looked quizzical, if anything. “Jeno? I’m Xiaojun.” Jeno looked Xiaojun in the eye, and neither wanted to blink. He knew that gifts were hard for Celestials to give and to receive, so this was a test. If Xiaojun knew it, the angel did not show it. “Thank you for the gift.”

He took the pie from Jeno with careful fingers. “Please, come in,” Xiaojun urged, and Jeno was somewhat pleasantly surprised by his sudden hospitality. But he knew that Celestials of both forms would use their charms to win over people to their causes, and he reminded himself to not trust this Xiaojun more than he could throw him. Not that Jeno was sure how far he could _actually_ throw an angel, because although he was strong, he was not sure if he was that strong, and his thoughts began to go in circles.

“Your lovely dog may come in as well.”

Jeno nodded and smiled down at Stella. “Thank you,” he said. “Stella, heel.” The dog rose to her feet and came to Jeno’s side, and together they walked into the angel’s home.

Inside, it looked much like every other local farmhouse Jeno had seen over the course of his life. Xiaojun bustled into the kitchen to put a kettle on, and directed Jeno to sit at his table. As far as the charade of being human was going, Xiaojun was doing a damn good job in Jeno’s eyes. It was too bad that Jeno and his friends would have to peel back the layers of illusions, because they were rather wonderful. But perhaps that was how it always was with angels—wonder, and then wonderful terror.

Xiaojun set the tea down when it was ready and took the seat across the table from Jeno. “Sugar?” He asked.

“Yes please.” Jeno took one of the proffered sugar cubes and hoped that they were not poisoned.

Their teaspoons clinked against the sides of their teacups as they stirred the sugar in. “You have a demon for a lover.” It was said so softly, so gently, that Jeno startled. Some of his tea leapt the edge of his cup.

He took an unsteady breath. There was no use in denying it, not when there was a chance the angel would be able to read some of his topmost thoughts that he had been carefully keeping quiet. “I do.”

“Hmm.” Xiaojun peered at him from underneath dark lashes, and the light he carried burned more away than the dark hid. “You smell of them. And someone else.”

Jeno swallowed, then nodded. He would not tell a lie, even though the conversation was going very much differently than he had been expecting. The angel shifted, his fingers carefully laced together and resting atop the table, and Jeno realized that perhaps more than just Jihoon, Lord of Hell, carried the look of a bird of prey. Xiaojun would be a kite, too, Jeno thought, and he watched how the angel’s lip quirked at the thought.

_So he was able to read uppermost thoughts._ Jeno had many questions he wanted to ask, but he was not sure he would want the answers, and he was not sure if angels were required to be true to their words like demons were. So when Xiaojun opened his mouth to speak, Jeno made sure that his was firmly closed. “I do not wish to harm demons.”

The tea set in front of each of them sent steam into the late afternoon air of the house. It curled around Jeno’s fingers like the lights in his mind, rainbow against black like Renjun. “Then why did you attack a Lord?”

Jeno did not need to say which Lord, or where he was the Lord of. Xiaojun knew, and Jeno could read this in his eyes. One did not need to be a Celestial for that. But eventually the angel spoke again, and Jeno was quickly getting the feeling that he was unable to leave a question unanswered.

Many would have taken advantage of this, but Jeno sewed his own mouth shut. He would give the angel the proper amount of space, even with what he had done in the past, and he would not ask too many questions.

“I was commanded to,” said Xiaojun. Jeno got the feeling that the angel wanted to look down at his teacup, to hide from Jeno’s eyes where all the questions he was not asking lived, but he did not. He was brave, Jeno realized, and noble, too. “Demons are assigned tasks by their Lords. Angels are made vessels by the archangels to accomplish tasks. Demons have their two halves joined into one, but for angels, the two are separate.”

The human stared and tried to comprehend. He tried and he tried, but he could not, so he decided to ask another question. “What are the two halves?”

It was afternoon, and Jeno was pleased that they were not having this conversation in the early morning, the traditional time of angels, or at the witching hour, the traditional time of demons. Once again, Xiaojun seemed to struggle, but once again, he answered. “The half of honor, and the half of horror. The two halves of all Celestials, that are carried with them wherever they go.”

Jeno pondered this. “So demons have honor and horror mixed, and angels have honor and horror separately?”

The angel nodded. “Yes.” He glanced down at the floor, where Stella was lying. Jeno knew that Xiaojun knew about the camera, but neither commented about it, and Stella continued happily panting on the cool tile floor. It did not seem that Xiaojun was attempting to harm her at all. “Archangel vessels tend to rely on horror the most to get the job done.”

Jeno hummed. “So that’s why the Lord....?” He did not finish his question, but he did not need to. Something passed across Xiaojun’s angelic face, but it was too quick for Jeno to get a good look at it. 

“That’s why the Lord.” Xiaojun sighed then, and Jeno felt like echoing it. It was not caused by a use of angelic power, but rather a kind of shared understanding. Jeno had expected to face terror to protect his friends when he and Stella had arrived to Scout the angel’s house, but he had gotten information instead. And it was then that Jeno saw that Xiaojun was _tired,_ and he felt something inside him begin to ache.

_No,_ thought Jeno, before the idea could plant its roots deep into the soil of his mind. Xiaojun looked at him quizzically again, so Jeno fell back on his usual smile and nod. The angel looked away. “Come, let me show you around.”

The angel pushed his chair back, so Jeno followed suit. He let himself be lead by an invisible string into one of the side rooms, and Stella padded along beside him.

Xiaojun did not stop to talk, but he very carefully lead Jeno by a variety of weapons. Some, like the swords and short blades, Jeno had seen similar ones before, but others, he did not recognize at all. He wondered how every culture came up with their own unique weapons, and which weapons were commonly used in parts of the galaxy that were not Earth. He found that such questions no longer made his head (or heart) hurt like they had used to, back when Jeno had first been adapting to life on Renjun’s scouting ship.

Speaking of Renjun, Jeno colored at Xiaojun’s knowing smile. He hadn’t realized he had been thinking quite so loudly, and the angel just shook his head at that thought. “Sorry,” said Jeno.

“No worries,” replied Xiaojun, and Jeno blinked at the casual wording. It had taken some extraterrestrials in Jeno’s life several years (read: Renjun) to get comfortable using casual language, but then again, Donghyuck always had. So there was no reason an angel would have spoken any more formally than a demon, Jeno guessed. It just sounded odd, coming from a creature Jeno had grown up hearing about always being good and righteous.

“I like that the most,” the angel continued, and Jeno pressed Stella against his thigh with a gentle hand and a few pets so that the camera would get the best possible view of it. Jeno had no idea what it was, but it was likely that either Renjun or one of the demons would be able to identify it.

“I’ve never seen it before,” Jeno admitted, and he kept petting Stella when she bumped his palm with her nose.

Xiaojun nodded. “Right, humans don’t use it.”

“Thought so,” said Jeno, as the angel began to guide him towards the front door.

“Thank you for stopping by.” Xiaojun’s smile was true, Jeno was certain, and that pleased him. Even if he was a troublesome angel, he did not seem half bad.

_Well, alright, he was definitely half bad._ Jeno guided Stella out the front door and prepared to step out himself, but a hand around his wrist stopped him. Xiaojun leaned in close, although if they had really wanted to, an archangel could have heard him any way he spoke. But all the archangels were busy, which was the gamble Xiaojun was playing. “I _so_ hate to be controlled,” he murmured.

Jeno was not sure what to say in reply, so he ducked his head in thanks. The angel mirrored the gesture, and then Jeno headed back down the path to the main road, where Jaehyun and the truck were waiting. By the time he was lifting Stella into the back of the truck and carefully securing her, Xiaojun was gone from the doorway.

He was both too hot and too cold on the drive home.

  
  


❂ ❂ ❂

They decided to move that very night. They had Jeno call the angel’s farmhouse and leave a message giving only the directions to an abandoned field and a time to be there, but other than that, they were just working on a hope and a dream. Perhaps it could be called a prayer.

The case was warm in Renjun’s hands, but it did not burn him. It did not glow, either, and that was stranger to him than if it _had_ been glowing in an unnatural, potentially harmful color.

Sometimes the lack of something points to more danger than its presence.

It was the same with the angel. He had not yet arrived, and although there were many potential reasons for this, everyone gathered in the abandoned field was hoping that he was not plotting to slaughter them all. Or no, not him, whatever archangel he was serving.

One moment, the space was lacking, and then the next, it was not. Xiaojun was still dressed in the lovely cream suit Jeno had met him in, but it looked threatening rather than comforting. Every one of the angel’s lines seemed harder, and although his eyes looked the same, his power did not feel the same. Even Jeno could feel it—it was like a wave of anxiety washing through a crowd, the feeling of a mob about to break into panic and chaos.

This was horror, Jeno knew. He did not know if it felt different to every individual there, but he was not about to ask. He could not see any of the weapons from earlier, but had been assured that the crate would take care of them all.

“Ten spaces apart, up to three versus me. No seconds other than the chosen three. We begin in one minute.”

Those gathered around all nodded, but Jeno was skeptical. He knew that horror meant the angel had no honor, so he did not know if that meant the angel could (or would) forfeit the tradition of a duel.

Jeno looked at Donghyuck and saw the fear in his eyes. Jeno looked at Renjun and saw the sadness in his. Without speaking, the demon crossed over to his lover, and Renjun bent down to set the case he had brought on the ground. “I’m ready,” said Donghyuck, and Renjun bit his lip but did his duty the same.

He opened the case, and there was no light. Well, there was no light that could be seen to the human eye, although Donghyuck stiffened and gasped at the influx of power, for there are more kinds of electromagnetic radiation than humans could usually comprehend.

Jeno turned away from it, although he knew that would do little to protect him from a gamma ray. But it was focused, and for once, in a complete exception, it was _absorbed._

It was absorbed, and Donghyuck practically vibrated with its power. Jeno could not feel the gamma ray, but he could feel the sudden change in his demon. Being near him now felt not unlike the odd vibration Renjun sometimes had, like that of the Veil, one that made Jeno’s very bones rattle. And now, as he looked at his two lovers, he saw how very alike they were.

Donghyuck stepped up to stand between his Lords, who sheltered him with their presences. Jeno, Renjun, and the others stepped back. _No seconds._ “May we count to the first cast?”

Xiaojun—or whatever was within Xiaojun’s body—cocked its head. It was an unnatural angle, even for an angel, and the sight of it made Jeno’s skin break out into gooseflesh. “Yes,” the thing in Xiaojun’s body agreed, and Jeno looked over at Doyoung.

The elder seemed to know that Jeno would be unable to count, so he cleared his throat and took a deep breath. The trio of demons and the angel stood what Jeno estimated to be approximately ten paces apart, so he decided not to ask to have them re-count. 

“Five.” Doyoung’s voice was clear. It echoed throughout the field, and the wind made it rustle against the distant corn stalks.

“Four.” Renjun stepped close to Jeno and tucked him against his side. The angel tracked the movement, but did not move itself. They interlaced their fingers, and Jeno could not help but remember the very first time they had done so. It was surprisingly bittersweet.

“Three.” The wind was shifting now, carrying the smell of the mountains down into the valley. Jeno wondered what his horses were thinking, and hoped that they weren’t getting into too much trouble with the changing weather, but then he realized that he was being ridiculous and focused in on what was about to go down in front of his eyes.

“Two.” Jeno realized that they were all standing in an abandoned field, and wanted to laugh at the symmetry of it. It was suiting, he guessed, a place for both beginnings and ends. He did not laugh.

“One.” Before Jeno could process a change, Renjun turned him so that his face was hidden in the Radem’s side.

Jeno saw nothing but the comforting darkness of Renjun’s favorite leather jacket, but Renjun saw a supernova. By the time Jeno was looking back over at the site of the action, Jihoon and Soonyoung had wound strong bonds around Xiaojun’s wrists and arms, and were working on his legs. But Donghyuck—Donghyuck was motionless on the ground before the angel.

Jeno did not remember his legs carrying him there, but he grabbed onto Donghyuck’s shoulders and saw that he was breathing. The demon made a little noise, a small, broken one, and then Renjun was crouching down beside Jeno in the dust.

“Damn,” said Renjun, brushing dust from Donghyuck’s face. “Someone got rode hard and put away wet, huh?” Jeno stared at him, but the Radem gave him a boxy grin. Jeno nodded, because Renjun was right that Donghyuck had definitely looked better.

“Jeno.” It was Soonyoung, a bound angel secured between him and Jihoon. “Where should we take him?”

The human and the Radem came to a wordless conclusion together there, crouching over Donghyuck in the abandoned field. “Let’s put him in the old hay barn,” said Jeno. Then he heard a sound he had never thought he would hear, and he had to look twice to make sure that his eyes were telling him the truth: Jihoon, Lord of Hell, bearer of the guitar of lost souls and the flame of eternal regrets, was laughing.

  
  


❂ ❂ ❂

Donghyuck woke to the smell of biscuits and honey, and he knew that therefore, it was a Sunday. He pushed himself out of bed with unsteady legs, and found with his hands that one side of the bed was still warm. It was Jeno’s side, which meant that Renjun had made the biscuit dough that morning.

Twin grins were waiting for him when he stepped into the kitchen. “Hyuck!” He found himself squished by Renjun in the tightest hug he had ever received, and the other extraterrestrial barely let him breathe.

“Come on, let’s give him some air!” Renjun huffed and let Donghyuck go, and the demon tilted a bit on his feet. “Oh darlin’, we should get some food into you. It’s been days.”

“Mhm,” Donghyuck agreed, although he was only somewhat listening to what was being said. Truthfully, he was rather distracted by the way Renjun was clinging hard to his hand; it was something they had done often, holding hands, but every single time felt like the first to Donghyuck. He didn’t doubt that it was the same for Renjun, and as Jeno pulled the biscuits from the oven, Donghyuck pulled their Radem down for a kiss.

Where the use of Donghyuck’s power had felt like flying, this was grounding, as was Jeno’s soft chuckle. “Come on lovebirds, breakfast is ready.”

Donghyuck looked back over his shoulder as soon as he was freed. “Hush up,” he whined, and Jeno gasped in mock shock.

“I can’t believe this is how you’d use your knowledge of honest Southern phrases!”

Renjun put some of everything onto Donghyuck’s plate. “Hush,” he said, and Jeno began to pout.

It was a normal Sunday morning, and as always, it tasted of scattered sunlight and the palest golden honey.

“Do you know what this is?” Donghyuck asked, one week-day morning. It was surprisingly warm in the farm house, luxuriant like a cat in a cozy spot. Even Stella was happily snoozing in the corner.

Jeno and Renjun looked at where he was pointing. He had pulled down the collar of the white tee he had taken to reveal his collar bone, and the blemish there. But the more Jeno and Renjun looked, the less like a blemish it looked. It was not one of Donghyuck’s moles; it was a scar, perfectly round and already healed over.

“Is that.…” Renjun’s voice was weak, but his eyes were not. In fact, they had steeled over.

Donghyuck swallowed. In a strange way, Jeno could feel more nerves bleeding from him then than before they had faced archangel-possessed Xiaojun. “It is.”

Before Jeno could ask for clarification, Renjun had left the room. He and Donghyuck were alone in the kitchen, mugs of coffee warm in their hands. “What’s that about?”

The demon shook his head. The ceramic of his mug made a dull, lost sound when Donghyuck set it down on the countertop. “Let’s go for a ride. I’ll tell you.”

  
  


The hoofbeats of their ponies were muffled on the grass of the cattle pasture. Jeno rode on a loose rein, although his thoughts were tense. “I served the demons while I was gone,” Donghyuck shouted. He was not angry, but the wind was high. “I fought angels for them elsewhere in the Milky Way. That’s identification, in case I went missing.”

Jeno swiveled in his saddle. “Dog tags?”

Of all the things Jeno had been expecting to hear Donghyuck say he had been up to, it was not fighting. No wonder Renjun had gone to cool off and taken his Scouting ship somewhere, much like Jeno sometimes did with a trusted horse or Stella.

“But you came back.” Jeno had picked up his reins and held his pony back until they were walking beside each other. “That’s what matters more than the leaving. You had to leave, so you did the right thing. And there will always be a place here for you to come back to, Hyuck.”

Donghyuck dipped his head, and Jeno did not pressure him for words. They rode in silence, and far in front of them, Stella weaved her way through the straggling cattle.

  
  


Summer thunderstorms rode in violet over the rimmed cup of the mountains. They rode in the late afternoon, lightning strikes as generals amongst the dark sheets of rain that were the cavalry. Jeno was thankful that his horses had already gotten out, because most of them hated the rain.

Renjun returned just as it was beginning to drizzle.

The trio sheltered inside the farm house, and the clouds of deep purple overtook them. Sun and Moon, their favorite prospect ponies, stood sheltered by the shed Jeno had built for them one warm spring day. Jeno had always been fast at building things; Renjun had not quite caught up to him yet in that particular skill.

Rain pelted down well into the evening. By the time Jeno, Renjun, and Donghyuck went to bed, Renjun thought he could see the shine of Scouting crates in the standing water, in the way it rippled when the raindrops hit it. It was beautiful, and although it was a regular part of farm life, it was something Renjun still had not gotten used to.

In the darkest part of the night, Donghyuck stirred. He had not slept, had not since he had woken for good from his second long sleep. It was not that evil does not sleep, but rather that evil had taken his sleep.

He slipped out from under the covers and toed on his boots by the front door. He took his favorite jacket from its place hung on the wall, too, and stepped out into the pouring rain.

The demon went around to the paddock of the young ones. Sun and Moon were resting, hiding from the storm by standing in the far back of their shed with their necks draped over each other. They perked up when Donghyuck walked up, though, knowing that he often carried cookies with him for the horses. And they were right in their guess, because Donghyuck dug into the pocket of his long coat and found a few horse cookies. They were a special kind without the cinnamon usually added, because Donghyuck knew how much the horses meant to Jeno and that cinnamon would read positive on a drug test at a competition.

“Here you go,” Donghyuck murmured, quiet and still out there with the horses. “That’s it, good boy. Good girl.”

He summoned grooming supplies from the main barn. Ordinarily, he would have walked there to pick them up and carry them, but it was dark and cold and rainy, and although he could not sleep, he disliked all of those. So he found himself currying and brushing Jeno’s champions, and when he was done, he found himself being scratched by their teeth upon the back of his neck. It was how they showed affection, Donghyuck knew, although he hadn’t been around horses for too long before he had first moved in with Jeno and Renjun.

It had been too long since he’d been around them, Donghyuck thought, and he could hear their hoofbeats in his soul even as they were standing still.

Just like Renjun, there was something in his soul that yearned to travel. It was a wanderlust common to extraterrestrial species, and although many humans experienced it, they had not yet learned how to harness it. Donghyuck knew that he could talk to Renjun over it, because it was something they both felt, but he also knew that he was free. He knew that he wanted to leave again, but that he would come back in much shorter time.

Donghyuck didn’t know where he was going to go yet, but he knew what he was going to do. As the horses shifted and whuffled around him, he saw shapes moving out there in the dark, but they were familiar.

Jeno and Renjun were shielded from the rain by their coats. “You’re leaving?” Renjun asked, and Donghyuck bit his lip. Even though it had been what he was thinking, he was not sure how to say it. Words carried different power when they were spoken out loud.

“Not yet,” he said, “and I’m coming back much sooner. But my old unit wants to meet in a bit, when we’ve settled.”

It would be easier for Donghyuck to settle than many others because he had seen far less. He wanted to tell Renjun this to comfort him, but once again, the words were not there.

“Well then,” Renjun began, and Donghyuck was surprised to see no anger in his expression. Worry, yes, but not anger. “We’d better go down to the river.”

The night road shone white under the Silverado’s headlights and KC lights. Jeno hadn’t been planning on turning on the KC lights until they reached the location, but Renjun had asked to see them, and Jeno was not about to deny him. It was summer, no longer sticky because it had been dark for several hours but still warm from the Sun’s residual heat, and Donghyuck was at his strongest—or at least since he had returned to Jeno and Renjun. He looked it, too, in a semi-translucent collared shirt he had found somewhere in California and shorts tighter than a horse’s shoe.

Renjun grinned at him every so often. Most of his attention was on the road as was proper, but he had been a good pilot, and he made a good driver. Of course, some time while Donghyuck was gone, the demon was convinced he had become a better pilot, but neither Jeno nor Renjun had seen him fly anything yet so they took that with a grain of salt. Their Sun had always been competitive, and it seemed that Donghyuck would carry that trait until his death far, far in the future.

The truck cut deep tracks in the mud by the riverside. Although it was summer, the riverbank was muddy because of flash floods from the thunderstorms, and when Jeno pulled some cheap white plastic chairs from the back, their legs sunk into the mud. Renjun eyeballed it; there were a few traditions he had not yet experienced, but that Jeno had said were “necessary” for living in a small, dusty town like the one they lived in.

In the bright white of the KC lights and the headlights, Renjun could just see shapes appearing from the blackness around the sides of the truck. There were Doyoung and Jaehyun parked next to their Silverado, and others that Jeno introduced to Renjun and Donghyuck.

“Jaemin,” greeted one young man with a cowboy hat to match Renjun’s slung around his neck. “I came here with the kiddos, Jeno, but I don’t know where they’ve gotten off to.”

“The kiddos!” Jeno exclaimed, grin more carefree than Renjun had seen for a long while. “It’s been years!”

“Yessir, they went off to high school in California.” Donghyuck knew that—he’d already met them, actually, on the same trip he’d picked up that shirt. He’d recognized Jisung’s and Chenle’s names from the story Jeno had told about sneaking onto the private farm to see the cutting horses, and he had liked seeing them in person, so the demon spun off from the main group to go say hello.

And before he knew it, he was leaping into the river. He splashed at the pair, and they splashed back, and although his clothes were soaked and the water was cold, Donghyuck did not get cold. He was the sun, after all, and this was not the first time in a long time that he had splashed in a river.

The first time in recent memory had been while he was away. It had been in a place far away, on a planet far away, in a system far away, and Donghyuck had been with his boys. He distracted himself from the memories of them by splashing at the boys before him, and reminded himself in a calm tone that the boys who were left always knew where to find him. He’d be with Jeno and Renjun for as long as he could be, which would be a very long time indeed.

“Darlin’, drinks are ready!” Donghyuck could see Jeno easily, even silhouetted against the light coming from the trucks, and he scampered back onto the bank. Water ran down his legs, and Jeno was suddenly happy that the demon had chosen to wear dark-washed jean shorts that night. His shirt was practically decorative at that moment, but not even Jaemin stared at him. He sprawled on Renjun’s and Jeno’s laps, and Jeno handed him a red solo cup. Donghyuck sniffed at it and found that it was overwhelmingly strong whisky, even before he tasted it.

“Moonshine?” he asked, and Jeno shrugged. If he looked a touch sheepish, the demon did not comment for once. He’d be lying if there hadn’t been all sorts of alcohol against the regulations shared by demons in his squad, and if he hadn’t thought of Jeno on those nights—Jeno and the bottles of obscenely expensive whisky he kept locked up in the farmhouse. This wasn’t Jeno’s quality of whisky, but the drinks the demons made hadn’t been, either, so this was closer to home and therefore Donghyuck’s heart.

They stayed out on the riverside for far too long. Eventually, Donghyuck, Renjun, and Jeno curled up together in the back of the truck, under the blankets they had set up for that purpose, but they couldn’t sleep—something was keeping them up, although it differed for each of the three. So they talked, although it wasn’t about anything particularly important, and some time between four and five in the morning, Renjun reached out to take Donghyuck’s hand. At first, Donghyuck didn’t make anything of it; Renjun was very tactile, liked knowing that Donghyuck and Jeno were _there,_ just as he was, in a way he had never been allowed as a Scout, but then Renjun lifted their interlaced fingers until their wrists were at eye-level. Jeno peered over Donghyuck’s shoulder, curious yet quiet to give the two of them the space they needed then.

Renjun peered at the scarring on Donghyuck’s fingers, something the demon hadn't known he had noticed, and he bent over to give it a kiss. He had grown out his hair since Donghyuck had left, the demon realized, until it truly was a mullet. Donghyuck had never thought he’d see the day he found a mullet attractive, but Renjun made it look like the most beautiful hair to ever grace the planet. Perhaps it was.

The three of them were all kept awake, and all for different reasons. But they all stuck close, and they all looked up at the Milky Way above them, and after a long time, the Sun began to rise in the east.

Renjun drove them back to the farm. Jeno and Donghyuck slept in the back, and the radio on low combined with their presences was enough comfort to keep Renjun centered. Sometimes he found himself untethered, wandering down the stream of the galaxy they could see out there on the clear nights in the country, but he didn’t escape the gravity of his two, and that was good. They always pulled him back, even when they didn’t know it.

But Donghyuck did know it, and together they knew it meant that Jeno was their home far from the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to Mod Tea for being running such a lovely fest and being incredibly organized, and to my beta for helping me hold my metaphorical horses! Thank you, too, to the 00ff Discord server for all the ridiculous times, and to everyone who let me scream about missing the biscuits from home in their dms. And, of course, thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed my space cowboys! ♡


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